


The Bond Between Beasts

by IcyDoodles



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Adventure, Blood and Violence, Demisexuality, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, InuSess, M/M, Mates, Romance, Slow Burn, sessinu
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23148379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcyDoodles/pseuds/IcyDoodles
Summary: Naraku was finally dead. The Shikon no Tama was long gone. Inuyasha’s days of perilous adventure were supposed to be over...right? He had finally come to terms with himself. When his youkai half can no longer be contained so easily, Inuyasha’s understanding of himself and what he is capable of is shattered into more shards than the blasted sacred jewel. And so, Inuyasha is forced to follow a new path alongside the last person he ever would have expected.
Relationships: InuYasha/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 179





	1. A New Threat

The thick stench of blood--his own mixed blood--filled Inuyasha’s nose for the hundred-millionth time. He distantly pondered how he’d grown so shamefully soft over the recent years while his head spun too fast for him to bodily force himself out of the dirt before another punishing, serrated limb gashed open his side and sent stars to his vision. Blood gurgled in his lungs. 

With desperation, Inuyasha grabbed for the sword at his hip, his constant and trusted lifeline. The empty air and sting of his claws in the palm of his hand reminded him of his loss. Tetsusaiga had plummeted from the cliff and into the ravine below. And perhaps soon he would join it. 

The irony was not lost on Inuyasha’s swimming, air-deprived mind. The sick amusements of the gods had dumped him into this world as neither a human nor youkai and yet he had always,  _ always  _ found a way to shove their stupidly lengthy list of obstacles back into their divine dick faces. He’d tracked down each and every confounded shard of the Shikon no Tama. He’d vanquished hoard after hoard of both savage and cruelly calculating youkai. He’d finally put an end to Naraku…

And Inuyasha might actually die this way--at the grotesque appendages of a no-name youkai who had caught him off guard and alone. 

The pain was dulling. The sounds of his tearing flesh were far away. And a familiar feeling bubbled up inside of his gut. 

The will of a dormant creature reached out to Inuyasha, finally tearing past Inuyasha’s measly mental barricade. In the back of his mind, Inuyasha knew he could not allow this to happen, to allow this half of him to take over again. But without Tetsusaiga at his side, the hanyou had no choice. 

Inuyasha’s vision flashed red as he slipped into afflicted unconsciousness. 

* * *

An unsettling quiet was awash in the forest as Sesshomaru stood perfectly still, eyes closed, breath even as he scented the crisp dusk air. A breeze lifted the length of his hair and shifted the fabric of his kimono. Yet no crickets chirped, no ravens cawed, and no tanuki scurried from their hiding places to greet the night. 

The forest was ever telling when something was gravely amiss. A feeling of unease stretched across the adjacent valley and over the looming mountains where Sesshomaru had left Jaken to tend to Ah-Un. Rather than alarm his fragile attendant, the youkai lord had elected to investigate alone. Three years had passed him by since impending danger had affected the land so thoroughly. He would not be surprised if he happened upon a battle over shogun territories. Human activity had been the country’s greatest threat of late. 

There was a fragile sense of peace within the realm of youkai, a necessary retreat from conflict after the immense manipulation and dominion of Naraku. The wisest of the youkai were quietly licking their wounds while the Ookami tribes patrolled the countryside as self-appointed, brutish guardians. It was doubtless the wolves would come sniffing around the area soon enough. And it was not unlikely that Sesshomaru himself would receive the highest accusatory scrutiny in this situation. 

Sesshomaru had not deigned to discuss the forward motion of youkai kind with the Ookami and they had not yet dared to present the matter to Sesshomaru, the current reigning lord of the western lands. The peace was too new, he supposed, for the Ookami to go searching for more conflict before they regrouped their own reign over their dwellings. To Sesshomaru, that was just as well, for he was content to interfere in affairs beyond his own lands as little as possible. If fear of his very name continued to preserve his independence, so be it. 

Besides, the only reason Sesshomaru truly had to return to this area was to oversee Rin’s reintegration into human society--from afar, of course. Rin would fight her own resolve to remain inside the village if she noticed him observing her progress. Only five times had he made formal visits to the village since surrendering his ward into their care, but not a full moon went by without a detour devoid of witnesses to the outskirts of the village. 

Rin was happy in the safety and warmth of the village overseen by Inuyasha and the young priestess. Small and tucked away in the forest, it saw little turmoil now. The last time he’d seen Rin, there had been wild flowers in her hair and she’d worn a grey-violet, more commonly fashioned kimono. She had smiled broadly, her arms linked with those of other village youth. The girl’s life was now going precisely according to his plans. Normally, Sesshomaru's personal success was reward enough for his efforts. 

And yet, this time… Sesshomaru was actively searching for error in his own decision. So far, he had found none. 

Sesshomaru had fully intended to make that detour again this very night, but he now had a new goal. He would isolate the current threat before it had the chance to discover the small human village Rin now called home.

The forest wind changed direction, and the scent of blood ignited his senses, prickling his skin, stripping him of awareness of anything else. Much of the scent on the wind was foreign, putrid, and savage. But the rest he knew well, too well. It was blood he’d spilled himself many times before. 

Inuyasha. 

The realization thrust Sesshomaru into motion through the trees, hackles risen, dismissing the constricting in his gut as burning fury. Although it had gone unsaid, the only reason Sesshomaru had chosen this backwater village to be Rin’s home was because Inuyasha was there to guard it. This was the damned hanyou’s only duty now. If Inuyasha had failed in his duty, Sesshomaru swore on their long-departed father that he would tear Inuyasha clear out of the afterlife and end his soul entirely. 

Bursting into a canyon clearing, Sesshomaru emerged on the site of carnage. The otherwise dry rock and earth of the cliff edge was darkened by blood and fleshy paste belonging to a creature ravaged beyond recognition. Scattered bits of thick skin were the color of algae, wrinkled and sunken like rotten fruit. Two large blood-shot eyeballs rested heavily in the dirt, still tethered to a brutally stripped skull by long, vein-like cords. The giant creature’s mangled carcass was now a misshapen, gutted torso surrounded by torn-off limbs and snapped bones. There had been no attempt to make a meal of the creature, the only aim had been complete annihilation. 

Such a messy, uncontrolled, thorough kill was the work of a creature far more dangerous than a mere sizable, brutal beast. But where was Inuyasha? The hanyou’s blood mingled with the carnage. As Sesshomaru was now upon the scene, he realized quite a lot of the hanyou’s blood had been spilled, but he had not been crushed into a paste as well as the green-skinned beast.

Sesshomaru leapt above the trees, gliding over thick canopies while he scanned the area, his sense of unease rising. His pursuit brought him in sight of the tallest and oldest tree in the forest, the Goshinboku. 

An unmistakable figure stood before the tree with long, ashen hair swaying and contrasting against garish scarlet robes. Even standing still on the forest floor, untouched by moonlight, Inuyasha was impossible not to recognize. 

Only when Inuyasha pivoted swiftly in his direction did Sesshomaru notice the glowing eyes beneath the layers of gore. This confirmed the lord’s suspicions--the hanyou was no longer himself. 

Potent youki wafted from Inuyasha’s tensed, blood-soaked body. The hanyou’s fight was over, there were no more enemies to be found, and yet Inuyasha was still entirely consumed by his own youkai blood. 

The sight of Inuyasha in this feral state was just as chilling as it had been the first time the youkai lord had witnessed it. This time, Sesshomaru was nearly upon him as he gazed down from above. And this time, Sesshomaru could not leave Inuyasha to his own devices. The crazed, seething hanyou was between Sesshomaru and the wholly unprepared human village. There was no telling what Inuyasha would do if he wandered into the village this way, as he seemed prepared to tear the head off of the first thing that came into his view. 

So naturally, Sesshomaru flung an acorn downward and struck Inuyasha between the eyes. 

Murderous claws narrowly missed Sesshomaru’s arm, instead tearing clean through his silk sleeve as Sesshomaru shot up, off of the branch, and toward the opposite end of the forest. As expected, Inuyasha tore after him, unwilling to allow neither threat nor prey to escape. 

The forest shuddered and quaked before the maddened hanyou, whose claws viciously split and splintered every opposing tree without slowing down. Sesshomaru knew first-hand the sheer adrenaline of inflamed youkai blood. What amount of destruction would it take to quell Inuyasha’s?

As if in response to Sesshomaru’s calculations, the tree directly in his path plummeted to the ground before his foot could connect with a sturdy limb, and his balance was lost. Searing points of unforgiving steel locked into the flesh of Sesshomaru’s ankle through the leather of his boot, wrenching him to the ground atop the wreckage of splintered wood. The youkai lord’s teeth snapped together when his jaw connected with a mess of roots and stone. Pocks of light flashed in his vision while he lay there, momentarily stunned and tasting blood. In his failure to rise back up, the hanyou pinned Sesshomaru further, driving his knees punishingly into Sesshomaru’s back. 

Snarling, Sesshomaru bucked his body upward, only able to move his head, which he whipped backward and smashed into what felt like Inuyasha’s nose, evoking a satisfying  _ crack  _ and yowl. Regaining control, Sesshomaru flipped onto his back and thrust forward with glowing claws, but both wrists were captured from below by wide, heated hands. 

And this was just about enough. 

Elongated in threat of a transformation, Sesshomaru’s teeth sliced into the meat of Inuyasha’s shoulder. Jaws locked, claws still dripping with poison, Sesshomaru tensed for inevitable retaliation. But the body in his teeth and the hands gripping his wrists seemed to freeze, expelling fast, shuddering breaths as though the hanyou was finally burning out. Except the hanyou remained a steel pillar, unmovable despite their awkward, unstable, bloody tangle. Was the brute...exercising restraint? 

Inuyasha failed to release him, so Sesshomaru too remained where he was, his jaw aching, tasting his brother’s blood. The awareness of each passing second slipped away and the force of his bite lessened slowly. The pain in his muscles and punctured leg dulled, as did sober, coherent thought. Sesshomaru tried to blink the feeling away, but his head still felt light and unattached to anything. 

Just as Sesshomaru realized Inuyasha had allowed the lord’s wrists to fall to his sides, a hand clutched the hair at the back of Sesshomaru’s head firmly and lifted up. The force was not overly hard, but Sesshomaru still found his jaw opening and his teeth sliding out of feverish flesh and torn cloth. 

Sesshomaru’s eyes opened. Inuyasha’s uneven breaths ghosted across Sesshomaru’s lips, and Inuyasha’s glare captured the entirety of Sesshomaru’s remaining attention. The hanyou’s eyes were no longer a solid red, blind with rage. Of course, there was still rage, emphasized by an upper lip raised above fangs that were too long for a human-sized mouth. But his slits of bright blue pupils had widened, replacing some of the glaring red and returning life and possible coherency to the hanyou’s stare. Before, those eyes had been unseeing, but now they gazed right through Sesshomaru in his floating yet shackled state. Those pupils darted back and forth, seeming to absorb the youkai’s face. Thick, dark eyebrows lifted slowly from their position of anger and melted into something akin to confusion. 

Ethereal heat radiated from Inuyasha, erasing awareness of the autumn chill that promised to coat each leaf and blade of grass with frost by the morning. The air was thick and looming now, shrouding them both and forming into feathery whisps that caressed the youkai’s face and neck. What was this haze, this cocoon? Something was outlandishly amiss, but the realization did not spur Sesshomaru into motion. Normally lightning responses had been entirely snuffed out. Sesshomaru was frozen in the grasp of a predator. For only the second time in his life, Sesshomaru was now the prey. 

Those hypnotic eyes finally broke from Sesshomaru’s gaze--not in defeat, but to scrutinize Sesshomaru’s other features. Sesshomaru’s skin tightened impossibly when Inuyasha lowered his nose to sniff Sesshomaru’s jawline. 

A low growl emerged from the youkai lord’s throat, but that was all he managed, and Inuaysha paid him no mind. Only moments had passed, but it felt like far longer as dirtied claws scraped over essential bloodways in his neck and neared his widened eyes. Inuyasha touched his face then, but the motion was too fast and firm and dirtied claws broke the skin of Sesshomaru’s cheek. Rather than Sesshomaru, it was Inuyasha who flinched and pulled his hand back before closing the gap between their faces and running his tongue up the side of Sesshomaru’s cheek. 

Sesshomaru’s blood froze in his veins, and feeling returned to his limbs. But Inuyasha’s steeled arms were ensnaring him, drawing him forward, and fangs as thick as a swordsman's fingers plunged into the side of Sesshomaru’s neck. 

The youkai lord could only choke on the searing, crushing pressure in his throat, his eyes wide with disbelief, his own claws blindly ripping at the body that trapped him. 

Was this it? Was this the death Sesshomaru had earned from his estranged hanyou kin? Father would condone this, Sesshomaru thought bitterly. Inuyasha had always been the one the late Lord of the West had intended to thrive. And Sesshomaru had always been expected to be an instrument toward that end. Whether Sesshomaru saw to it willingly, or orchestrated it with his own demise, it mattered not. Inuyasha could tear out the youkai’s throat with his teeth and he would still be the hero of this world, of human and now youkai alike. 

Inuyasha no longer needed anyone to challenge him, to force him to be better. The young creatures of the world were learning to govern themselves while the old ones were fading into reclusivity. And Rin no longer needed…

Sesshomaru gasped, filling his lungs once more with painfully crisp air as the hanyou’s teeth pulled swiftly out of his neck, allowing hot blood to stream down Sesshomaru’s chest, beneath his robes. Sesshomaru pressed his hand to the wound, which was miraculously not a gaping crater, but Inuyasha wrenched it away, gripping Sesshomaru’s arm as Inuyasha brought his mouth down again to roughly catch blood with his tongue rather than bite. 

Sesshomaru realized he was no longer holding himself up or tensing against Inuyasha’s grip. It was as though the youkai had been injected with a hundred tranquilizing bursts of spiritual energy--without the crippling pain. He was like an elk being slowly drained by its hunter while it still writhed and twitched before the finality of death. 

To Sesshomaru’s dazed surprise, fangs did not find purchase in his flesh once more. Instead, the hanyou’s tongue focused on the surface of his wound, moving over it again and again until the blood ceased to run. 

Beginning within the side of his neck, a warm, tingling feeling crept through the entirety of Sesshomaru’s body. For a moment, he forgot who he was, what he was, and where he was, letting go of apprehension and feeling only a sense of contentment. And then it was gone. He was himself again, and at the mercy of another. 

Inuyasha’s mouth left him and the hanyou turned his head, pulling one side of his own robes off of his shoulder before he sealed his mouth over the wound inflicted moments--or was it hours--ago by Sesshomaru. When Inuyasha lifted his head again, the wound on his shoulder too was closed. 

A shudder and sigh of air left Inuyasha’s body and the red drained from his eyes, leaving behind the hanyou’s usual deep gold. He blinked twice, bloodied lips parted to reveal normal-sized fangs. 

“Sesshomaru..?” Inuyasha breathed hoarsely. 

Then, Inuyasha’s eyes rolled back and his body dropped like a leaded sack, pulling Sesshomaru down with him into the wreckage of the ground. If Sesshomaru could move again, he failed to notice beneath the unconscious hanyou. 

Sesshomaru was alive, he was almost certain of that. He was alive...but at what cost?


	2. Marked

Something hard repeatedly smacked the top of Inuyasha’s head, somehow shaking the entirety of his body as though the earth quaked beneath him. When he opened his eyes to the painfully blinding sunlight, he realized he was upside down and being raised off the ground by something constricting his midsection. Before he could register more of what was happening, his body sailed back down and his head struck the ground hard enough to dent it.

“The _fuck_ ,” Inuyasha barely managed through a dry, raspy throat as he flailed what he could of his body. This display seemed to stop his offender from using his head to continue to beat the ground below him. Whatever held Inuyasha’s waist shifted, turning the hanyou to face the upside down figure of—oh, of _course_.

Inuyasha groaned loudly, fixing a pained glare in the direction of the high and mighty Sesshomaru, lord of dicks and all who kissed his ass.

Sesshomaru’s sadistic whip released him and he whirled around in the air to land in an upright crouching position. Inuyasha shook the hair out of his face, head splitting and nose aching so badly his eyes watered, and he stood, preparing to land a punch square in the youkai’s jaw.

“The fuck do you think you’re—” Inuyasha stopped short, looking Sesshomaru up and down. The youkai stood straight, his expression as unreadable as usual, but his clothes were wrinkled, torn, and stained with blood in various places. Dried blood also matted the ends of hair that fell over his shoulders. “Wow… You look like shit.” Inuyasha almost laughed.

Such a remark from Inuyasha normally would have sent him flying at the very least, but Sesshomaru remained where he was. The venom beginning to waft from Sesshomaru could very well have singed off Inuyasha’s eyebrows though.

“Hanyou cur,” Sesshomaru finally spat, “you have no idea what you have done, do you?”

Inuyasha bristled at the familiar term of degradation. Then he frowned, wincing at the movement in his nose as he tried to recall what Sesshomaru could possibly be referring to.

Flashes of the village returned to Inuyasha’s mind. He had sat atop a tall tree, gazing over the fields of crops and far-away huts and villagers moving in the distance like ants. Warm sake had slid down his throat almost as easily as water. He’d been drunk. _Very_ drunk. His feet had carried him away from the village because he had needed to be _away_. Then… Something had found him, hoping him to be easy pickings. They’d fought...and that something had beaten him.

Looking down, Inuyasha realized he too was caked with blood. He could smell the creature that had gutted him. He knew his own blood had gone everywhere. And Sesshomaru’s blood was definitely in the mix.

“It happened again, didn’t it?” Inuyasha asked, referring to the emergence of his youkai half. He knew that had to be the case because he had lost time. He could not remember anything that had happened after his youkai had taken over.

“So my youkai took some shots at you?” Inuyasha allowed himself a smirk. “What, are you pissy that you can’t take me anymore?”

Sesshomaru stepped a little closer, the scent of poison growing stronger, and the blankness in his face gave way to maddened ferocity.

“Whoa, wait,” Inuyasha put his hands up and stepped back a bit in response. “I probably have brain damage and I’m pretty sure you broke my nose, so we’re even now, right?”

Sesshomaru exhaled and, strangely, he did not argue. Instead, Sesshomaru reached his hand up, causing Inuyasha to flinch a little and prepare himself for the youkai’s inevitable wrath. Sesshomaru’s hand then lifted his hair away from the left side of his neck and turned his head for Inuyasha to see.

Still not sure this wasn’t some kind of trick, Inuyasha glanced cautiously at Sesshomaru’s neck. The area was pinkish and textured like a new scar. With closer inspection, Inuyasha realized the scar was in the shape of a bite mark. His brows rose as he searched for more information in Sesshomaru’s exhausted-looking face—since when did Sesshomaru ever get tired, let alone allow it to show on his face?

“What the fuck is that and why is it still there?” asked Inuyasha. It took a hell of a lot to give that youkai a scar. A terrible feeling sat heavily in Inuyasha’s stomach.

“You did this to me.” Sesshomaru slashed him with his eyes, yet still he made no move.

Inuyasha swallowed. “Why am I still alive, then?”

“I am unable to kill the one who has marked me.”

The blood drained from Inuyasha’s face. “No. No fucking way.” He was finding it harder and harder to draw air into his lungs. “You are a lying bastard. I knew you were sick, but this joke is a whole new level of twisted, Sesshomaru.”

Sesshomaru backhanded him across the face and Inuyasha bit deeply into his tongue. Growling, Inuyasha launched himself at Sesshomaru, but Sesshomaru side-stepped and the hanyou caught only air and dirt in his claws.

“Do you honestly believe I would ever _jest_ about this matter?” Sesshomaru thundered. “The mere concept of this is an abomination! We are mated—”

“Don’t say _that word_!” Bile rose in Inuyasha’s throat. This had to be a nightmare caused by a rotten batch of sake. He was on his knees now, his heated energy leaving him. “Did we actually have..?” He could not say it.

“No. There was no copulation.”

Inuyasha released the breath he had been holding. Perhaps the gods had not completely forsaken him yet.

“How did this happen?”

“I do not know.”

“How can you not know? You are the only one who remembers! This kind of thing can’t just _happen_ , right? It’s not like gods-damned pregnancy!”

Sesshomaru only stared blankly past Inuyasha. Why was he not saying anything? Why didn’t he know? Sesshomaru was supposed to know these things, he was the pureblood!

“So my youkai bit you. So what? Why does that mean something? I didn’t know what I was doing. And you would never accept something like that. So how the fuck did you let this happen?”

“You did something to me!” yelled Sesshomaru, affronted. “My will was no longer my own. Your youkai must have misinterpreted my bite.”

“You bit _me_ too?”

“I was defending myself against your savagery. I should have bitten through your windpipe and ended it.”

Frantically, Inuyasha ran his fingers over his face, neck, and torso, quickly noticing the punctures in his haori. Shoving the fabric aside, Inuyasha gazed mournfully down at the teeth marks that branded his shoulder.

“The Tetsusaiga is gone, is it not? You have only your own weakness and carelessness to blame for what you have done.”

Inuyasha closed his eyes, knowing full well that Sesshomaru was right. If he had not lost his sword, Tetsusaiga would have kept his youkai side at bay. Maybe he would have just died, thought Inuyasha, almost wishful. On top of that, Inuyasha had left the village without saying anything to anyone, even though he had promised not to do that. He was supposed to be a part of them now, living beside them as an equal, protecting them.

He was supposed to claim Kagome as his mate. At least, that was what he had decided for himself three years ago. Lately, though, Inuyasha knew things had become complicated and different. Kagome was consumed by her duties as their village priestess. The denial in Inuyasha’s mind had used Kagome’s work as an excuse for a while now. She no longer kissed him on the lips or looked at him in the same pining way she used to. He knew she still loved him, but it was not the same.

Kagome was growing up and she was leaving Inuyasha behind. Humans changed so much year to year. While they changed, Inuyasha stayed the way he always was. And his lack of change, he knew deep down, would not be enough for Kagome in the long run.

Perhaps that was why Sesshomaru had left Rin behind with the village, Inuyasha realized for the first time. Sesshomaru had understood that Rin would need other humans and even choose other humans over him down the line. If he had been any real brother to Inuyasha, maybe Sesshomaru would have warned him. Not that Inuyasha would have listened.

Inuyasha touched the mark on his shoulder with the pads of his fingers, feeling nothing but sickness. Never in his wild imagination had he pictured himself with one of these. Inuyasha had never held out much hope of mating at all, being a hanyou, but if he chose anyone at all, they would have been human. If he mated with a human, Inuyasha was not even certain that he would claim them with a mark. Inuyasha did not need to live as a youkai to be happy, and the idea of marking a mate with his teeth had never been particularly appealing to him.

The option was stolen from Inuyasha now. By the worst being imaginable.

“What happens now?” Inuyasha asked no one in particular. His own voice sounded distant to him.

“I will not allow this atrocity to go uncorrected, and we will not remain bound any longer than we must.”

Inuyasha lifted his head, a small sense of hope returning to him. “You mean, this isn’t permanent?” The look on Sesshomaru’s face said, _I would find a way to kill you if it were._

“An acquaintance of our bloodline should be able to provide a remedy.”

Inuyasha nodded. No wonder he had no idea who to ask for help. Few allies to their bloodline would make their existence known to _him_.

“Just let me tell the others that I’ll be going away for a while,” Inuyasha said as he gathered his wits about him. “I owe them that much.”

“No. We will go now.”

“Fuck off. I have never taken orders from you and I’m not gonna start now.”

Before Inuyasha made it five steps away, Sesshomaru said evenly, “And what will you say?” Inuyasha stopped, keeping his back to the youkai.

Sesshomaru continued, “They will want an explanation. Will you allow them to see you this way? Will you tell them what you have done? Can you truly face them?”

Each question cut deeply. Inuyasha had worked so painfully hard to find a place in this world where he fit. And this horrible lapse in his sanity could be the thing that brought it all crashing down.

Inuyasha’s silence was accepted as his response.

“Within the day, you will meet me in Sagami Swamp. There is a hut in the center of it.”

Then, Sesshomaru was gone, and Inuyasha was left to truly, deeply despise the pureblood youkai. And, even moreso, himself.


	3. The Bond

A leaf drifted slowly atop the river that flowed between the two great cliffs splitting their land. The river was sluggish enough to allow Inuyasha to gaze down into the water and clearly make out his reflection. Crouching, he caught sight of his nose and groaned, causing some kind of furry rodents to scurry away. Granted, Inuyasha had never had the best nose, but now it was smooshed towards the right side of his face, bruised and crusted with blood. It had already begun to heal that way, he realized, wincing. This was going to hurt.

Inuyasha placed his thumb and forefinger on both sides of his nose, squeezed, and jerked it to the left.

His howl of pain was muffled by his hands clutching his face, but it still echoed a few times while tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. Still crouching and tucking his head towards his chest, Inuyasha took a moment to gather himself before he stood and began stripping off his foul-smelling clothes. He balled each article into his hands and lowered them into the water, one by one, scrubbing the fabric against itself and watching various bodily fluids and small chunks of viscera begin to run with the slow current.

When he was finished, Inuyasha chose a long-dead tree and draped his clothes among its few branches. Without wasting time, he walked back to the edge of the river and plunged his nude body into its depths. The water still held some warmth from the summer months, so it was not unpleasant.

This spot was directly below the cliff edge where Inuyasha had fought the asshole greenish thing that snuck up on him. Tetsusaiga had to be down there somewhere.

Poking his head out of the water, Inuyasha took a deep breath and dove back down. The slow current of the water kept the murkiness at bay, but the river was deep, which made it very difficult to see once Inuyasha reached the bottom. He was reduced to feeling his way around down there while he swam, his fingers squishing through sediment and rotting debris and, _ow_.

Something bit into the meat of Inuyasha's hand, forcing him to release numerous bubbles in a silent scream while he flailed towards the surface. Bursting free of the water, he gasped more air into his lungs—how long had he been down there anyway, only to come up with nothing but a potential infection?

Luckily for whatever bit him, it'd had the sense to let go before he'd had the chance to tear it in half. Inuyasha ground his teeth together. Eels or whatever be damned, Inuyasha was not leaving until his sword was back in his hands. With another deep breath, he dove down again.

Soon, Inuyasha's brain had mapped out every rock and slimy weed by touch. He'd even dug further into the packed mud _just_ in case the weight of Tetsusaiga had caused it to sink into the bottom, which made it even more impossible to see anything.

By about his fifteenth dive, the hanyou was dizzy with a lack of air and various bite marks stung his skin.

Inuyasha beat the surface of the water with his fists, causing his saturated hair to stick to his face. He did _not_ under _stand_. Why was all of this happening to him? What god had he pissed off so thoroughly that they would do all of this to him?

A voice in the back of Inuyasha's mind reminded him that he had done this to himself, and he growled to silence it. His eyes crept down to the mess on his shoulder he had tried to pretend was not there. As he forced himself to look, an image of Sesshomaru's mouth shoved its way into Inuyasha's mind. The pale, full lips were parted, inching slowly towards Inuyasha's shoulder until they touched his skin in an eager, soft way.

Inuyasha squeezed his eyes shut, feeling queasy and downright wretched.

That was _not_ how Sesshomaru had left his mark and Inuyasha knew it. Inuyasha's youkai had attacked him and Sesshomaru had lashed out in the moment. He _knew_ this. So why was his brain rewriting the terrible incident in such a sickening way?

A pressure built up in Inuyasha's mind. It was like something Inuyasha had recently forgotten, attempting to force its way back into his awareness and understanding. The pressure slithered around, but Inuyasha could not will it away, and he could not grab onto it either. Something with a will of its own lurked just outside Inuyasha's consciousness.

This was the longest Inuyasha had been completely separated from Tetsusaiga since he'd received it, he realized suddenly, and whatever Tetsusaiga had been holding at bay was rearing its head, even though Inuyasha was no longer bleeding out or close to unconsciousness.

Inuyasha's youkai blood was seeking its mate, regardless of his own will. Regardless of how much he _hated_ this.

Inuyasha's claws raked through his shoulder, splitting the mark that shackled him, coating it with a sheen of red.

He knew it could never be that easy though, or Sesshomaru would have done this to him already, before he had even regained consciousness. A mark like this ran far deeper than just skin.

Sesshomaru.

Inuyasha no longer really feared for his life while he was around Sesshomaru. Their trials against Naraku had changed something, and Sesshomaru now carried Bakusaiga at his side along with Tenseiga. The youkai didn't need Tetsusaiga anymore, and he hadn't seriously tried to take it from Inuyasha in a long time now.

Then again, revenge might as well have been Sesshomaru's middle name. And then it would be hyphenated with 'manipulation.'

Sesshomaru would make damn well sure that Inuyasha would follow his orders to meet him at the swamp.

Inuyasha stomped out of the water and pulled on his still-damp clothes, knowing he had absolutely no choice but to follow Sesshomaru's lead, regardless of the hazard to his health.

* * *

Sagami Swamp was a festering haven for any reclusive, passive youkai. The putrid scent of decay alone would prompt any self-respecting creature to give it a wide berth, so it was perfect for one desiring seclusion. Algae made the warm, stagnant water a dirty green while countless patches of gelatinous fungi grew out of rotting logs. No one had bothered to line a path with wooden planks for convenient travel, so Sesshomaru's boots sunk into the patches of non-flooded ground with each step.

A modest hut sat atop a sturdy dock, slightly elevated above the water and mud. The outside was deceptively plain, for when Sesshomaru climbed the handful of steps and slid open the entrance, he was greeted by an interior boasting of wealth. Everything was colorful, patterned, and pristine, as only a sorcerer could keep the inside of a swamp hut. A familiar, petite lizard youkai stood beside a table cluttered with alchemical ingredients and vials of mysterious liquids, clutching an open scroll in his hands.

"I require your services, Isami," Sesshomaru announced, unwilling to waste any time.

"My, you have not changed, Sesshomaru-sama," replied the sorcerer fluidly in almost a whisper.

Isami, Sesshomaru noted, had not changed either.

The lizard youkai placed his scroll on the table and walked leisurely towards Sesshomaru, with an elegance flaunting a falsely aristocratic upbringing. His connections with true aristocracy had allowed him to accumulate his current finery. Isami wore pristine, long white robes with a blue foliage pattern gracing the lengths of his sleeves and the lower third of his kimono. The end of a long reptilian tail poked out from the bottom of the kimono, nearly hidden. His sturdy facial structure gleamed dully with the purple scales that covered his entire body, and small pointed ears barely protruded from the sides of his head. Instead of hair, three slight ridges ran evenly from his forehead, the center ridge reaching between his eyes, to the back of his head. He turned solid red eyes, slitted with long, thin pupils towards the floor in front of Sesshomaru, bowing slightly.

With a wave of Isami's hand, the single-room hut glowed with flickering candlelight, illuminating the far wall and its array of weapons displayed between silk paintings that seemed to depict watery landscapes resembling the land outside. "What is it you require of me, My Lord?"

Sesshomaru's fingers curled into a tight fist. "If you breathe a word of what we are about to discuss, your skin will be the next item to adorn this room."

"Oh, Sesshomaru-sama, I am wounded. My discretion has always matched my skill."

"I need a remedy."

Isami raised his non-existent brows and clasped his scaly fingers together. "Whatever for? The Sesshomaru-sama I know never succumbs to illness."

Sesshomaru was forced to expel the disgraceful topic like a hot coal from his tongue. "I need to know how to remove a mating mark."

Isami was quiet for a moment, seeming to digest this information and to choose his response carefully. He stroked his chin and traced his bottom lip with a short, black nail. "Who bears this mark?"

"Myself. And another."

"What other?"

Sesshomaru closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "Inuyasha."

Isami's already large eyes widened and then narrowed with deep disapproval. "The hanyou?"

As if Inuyasha were responding to a theatrical stage cue, the hanyou burst loudly through the sliding door, entirely out of breath.

"Sesshomaru," Inuyasha gasped out, chest heaving, "you fucking bastard! Where is Tetsusaiga?"

Sesshomaru resisted the urge to drown Inuyasha in the mud outside for his insolence. Actually, Sesshomaru did not have to resist the urge because he was currently _incapable_ of doing so. While his body still faced Isami, Sesshomaru leveled Inuyasha with an indirect glare. "Have you taken leave of your miniscule senses?"

"I don't know, Sesshomaru, but you'd like me to _think_ I have, wouldn't you? It's just like you to kick me in the balls when I'm already down!" The hanyou shoved frizzy silver hair out of his face, revealing a manic expression.

"You are not the only one affected by this," Sesshomaru spat back. That admission seemed to shut the hanyou's infernal jaws. "And I would gain nothing from the possession of Tetsusaiga now. If you have truly lost the fang, then the misfortune spurred by your youkai blood has only just begun."

"Inuyasha-san!" Isami chimed in with fake enthusiasm and a smile. "Please have a seat so we might conclude our business."

Inuyasha huffed loudly and sat cross-legged on the floor beneath him, ignoring the fine cushions placed around the nearby tea table. Regardless, Isami seated himself atop a cushion and poured three cups of tea from a teal porcelain pot while Sesshomaru continued to stand and Inuyasha sat defiantly.

"Now," Isami said, retaining his smile, "if you two have decided to mate, why do you wish to be separated?"

Both Sesshomaru and Inuyasha visibly bristled, saying in unison, "I did not decide to mate with him!"

Isami raised a surprised brow. "You mean to tell me neither of you wanted this and it happened _anyway_? I have heard forced bonding, but it is rare and requires immense power and _intent_. Was it painful? Who was the one to dominate—?"

Sesshomaru growled, unappreciative of the lizard's implications. "We are not subjects for your research, Isami," he said with finality. "There was no physical mating. The bond was formed through the act of marking alone. You will ask no more questions."

Isami nodded, dipping his head in formal apology.

"It was my youkai side," Inuyasha blurted tightly, hands clenched in his lap, refusing to look anyone in the eye. "It's usually sealed up inside of me, but it's not anymore. I don't even remember what it did or why."

"Interesting," said Isami, sipping his tea while he thought for a moment. "If a significant portion of your youkai blood is normally sealed away, it may have manifested a personality separate from you. It is likely too primal to have understood what it was doing. It could not have done this for personal or political gain. I am guessing that this primal part of you wanted something in the moment, and so it took it. Since it was so uncontrolled, a lack of sex is highly unusual."

Inuyasha slammed his fist down and into the floorboards, splintering them. "I don't care how it happened or what was weird about it, I just want it _gone_." He groaned, pressing the pads of his fingers into his forehead while jagged purple marks appeared on his cheeks and then disappeared a moment later.

"Ah," replied Isami, "but a part of you does _not_ want it gone. I am sorry, and I truly wish to keep my skin as I say this," he said, eying Sesshomaru, "but there is no simple remedy. The process of removal will be arduous—"

"I care not what the process entails. I will not be bound to a wretched hanyou, nor will I ever allow him to continue to bear my mark."

"The feeling's mutual, _brother_ ," agreed Inuyasha with no affection whatsoever.

Sesshomaru ignored him. "You removed the mark from my father so he could pursue a human without being bound to my mother. Is this not the same?"

"And that brings me to my point," Isami continued. "This is not the same at all. Your bond is...unique. Your bond began as a bond of blood, a bond between brothers—"

"Inuyasha is hardly my brother."

"Understatement," Inuyasha laughed humorlessly. "I didn't even know you before my mother was in the ground and you already wanted me dead. The world has to be ending for you to be of any kind of _help_ , and your human pet has to be in the care of _my_ village for you to show up without trying to impale or maim me!"

"Well, the bickering alone—" Isami stopped when he met Sesshomaru's eyes, clearing the unwise statement out of his throat. "Your bond began as a half-sibling bond, even if you do not accept that bond. The mating bond you have forged is made stronger and more complex by your bond of blood. The two bonds are entwined. So, at the moment...the bond cannot simply be removed. Any mark on the flesh can be marred, obscured, or mangled, but the bond will remain intact."

Sesshomaru's rage built with every word. Isami must have noticed because he reached for the sword at his hip, even though they both knew Isami could never best Sesshomaru in battle.

"If you don't tell me what I can do about this _real_ quick, I swear to _fuck_ —"

"There is no need for vulgar threats, Inuyasha-san. The blood bond between you both is, well...twisted at best. In order for me to break your mating bond, you must alleviate some of the strain on your blood bond. The both of you," the lizard's eyes flicked from Inuyasha to Sesshomaru, "must return to the grave of your father."

"His grave is not even in this world," Inuyasha protested. "And how the fuck will that solve anything? This is bullshit!" Silently, Sesshomaru agreed with Inuyasha.

"Which is precisely why this will be difficult. You must return to your father in unity, rather than violent hostility. Afterwards, I will be able to separate you, despite the will of Inuyasha's youkai blood. I swear on pain of death that this journey will put you both on the correct path."

"Is that all?" Sesshomaru asked, increasingly doubtful.

"That is all."

"Look. I know you and Sesshomaru go way back, but I don't know you. How do I know I can trust you?" Inuyasha crossed his arms.

"You don't, I suppose. But all I ask in return is for you to bring back the flowers that grow in the shadows of his bones. And you need not pay me until my part of the bargain is complete."

Sesshomaru released his breath slowly, his jaw tightening. "And how do you propose we get there, Isami? I have already used the portal hidden within Inuyasha's eye. That portal is useless now, we cannot return."

The lizard hesitated. "...I know of another portal," he admitted softly.

The youkai lord smiled nefariously, cracking his knuckles. "You knew. You knew the way to my father's tomb as I searched for it, and you kept it from me."

Isami tapped his arm nervously. "My Lord, you know very well that it was not my place to—"

"Fool. You will be fortunate to possess a head when this is resolved."

Isami swallowed. "Do not forget, you still need me. You would not be here otherwise. And you have no idea what I am capable of now." The lizard youkai stood up swiftly to hold Sesshomaru's gaze, glaring dangerously in turn. "This portal does not connect directly to Lord Inu no Taisho's tomb as the black pearl did. This portal will transport you to somewhere in the spirit world. From there, you must find the tomb yourselves."

"Right. Sure. Okay." Inuyasha threw his hands into the air dramatically and stood as well. "We'll just do that. If—and that's a _huge_ if—we manage to stumble across good ole Dad's grave, then what? How do we get back?"

"Once you have gone through the portal, you are out of my hands. I cannot say how long this process will take. Your portal will serve as a gateway to—and from—the spirit world. It can do this only once. When Its purpose is fulfilled, your portal will disintegrate."

"Well that's fine, as long as it'll get us back here. It's not like we'll need to go back to the spirit world once all of this is over with."

"Indeed," agreed Sesshomaru curtly, still unimpressed by Isami's former secrecy.

"All right, then," said Isami, his previous forced smile returning. "What you require is not with me at the moment." Sesshomaru stifled a groan. Of _course_ the lizard had hidden it somewhere. "So the two of you will spend the night here while I retrieve it for you."

Before either Sesshomaru or Inuyasha could protest, Isami slipped past them and through the door of the hut, sliding it shut behind him.

"Perfect." Inuyasha grabbed an untouched teacup from the table and launched it at the wall, shattering the porcelain and wetting the wall with its dark contents. "We get to be mates for another fucking night."

Sesshomaru's eyes fixated on the bit of teal porcelain on the floor as he tried not to allow his mind to dwell in the unknown, for that place in his mind reminded him that he could potentially be bound to Inuyasha for a lot longer than one more night.

* * *

The night was never quiet in Sagami Swamp. While many creatures slept, the swamp was alive with bullfrogs, tree frogs, crickets, and loons. More effort would be required to hear potential intruders if they did not splash around on their way towards the hut.

The candle lights inside of the room had been extinguished, and Sesshomaru sat upright atop a cushion on the floor, his forearm resting on the low table while he sipped sake in the dark. If Isami would force him to wait there, Sesshomaru would return the favor by indulging in the aged sake Isami had tried to hide on his shelf behind vials of toad's blood and crushed beetles.

Inuyasha lay on his side in the far corner of the room, as far as possible from Sesshomaru, facing the wall and pretending to sleep. Sesshomaru was acutely aware of Inuyasha's constant shifting and silent fuming. He had never known Inuyasha to be quiet for so long while he was awake. Then again, they had never been in each other's presence alone for this long. Inuyasha's humans and mouthy fox kit were never far away from him, until now. Sesshomaru wondered how long he would be allowed the gift of the hanyou's silence.

The sake barely dulled Sesshomaru's consciousness and did not halt the thoughts of disbelief cycling through his mind. The eradication of their bond was supposed to have been simple, as he and Inuyasha shared no emotional connection. How the bond had formed with no desire between them, save for that of Inuyasha's manifested youkai half, Sesshomaru would never understand. As far as he knew, his father and mother had rid themselves of their mating bond easily. They'd loathed each other by the end of it all.

To Sesshomaru's surprise, Inuyasha's breathing soon grew even and slow. For a few moments, Sesshomaru found himself appreciating the calm that resonated from the one he now shared a strange, abhorrent connection with. The calm, however, did not last.

Sesshomaru's eyes bore into the hanyou's back while the pace of his heart quickened. He could sense it—the power. It was that same unpredictable power that had swirled around him and shot into his bloodstream when the hanyou bit him the previous night. This was the power that had claimed—no, _imprisoned_ —Sesshomaru with sheer, unbridled force alone. The awakening of Inuyasha's youkai blood thrummed within the flesh of Sesshomaru's neck as though those fangs would soon pierce his skin again.

Inuyasha shot up from his position on the floor, landing in a crouching position and sniffing the air. The true Inuyasha was nowhere to be found in the glowing red eyes and twisted expression that seemed torn between pain, confusion, and twisted amusement. Those eyes settled on Sesshomaru, who sat stiffly, unmoving, as though his stillness might cause the beast before him to stay put if he made no sudden movements. Unfortunately, Inuyasha was not that kind of beast.

Inuyasha crept forward, jerking his head oddly and narrowing his eyes as he tried to approach.

"That is close enough," Sesshomaru said, keeping his voice even.

Either Inuyasha could not understand him in this state, or he simply chose not to listen and continued forward. Sesshomaru's hand glowed at his side and Inuyasha stopped, growling low in his throat. The wretched hanyou knew exactly what Sesshomaru could do to him if he had the mind, especially since whatever had come over Sesshomaru the previous night would _never_ come over him again. The power over Sesshomaru had been a fluke that Inuyasha's youkai half would not be able to duplicate.

Sesshomaru was not naive. Now that they were a mated pair, Inuyasha's youkai blood would crave intimate contact with Sesshomaru. To what extent, however, Sesshomaru did not know. What he did know was that he would need to be vigilant and careful. Whatever he did to Inuyasha now could adversely affect Sesshomaru as well. He could not see how a mating bond was anything but a curse.

At the very least, Inuyasha did not seem to be entirely out of control as he paced in front of Sesshomaru, baring his teeth and seeming to study Sesshomaru's lack of movement.

"You are a hateful, wretched animal," Sesshomaru said quietly to the hunched form of Inuyasha. "Were you not satisfied with your power and glory? You had to have _me_ as well?"

Inuyasha cocked his head, deciding finally to disregard Sesshomaru's visual threat and move into Sesshomaru's space. Before Inuyasha could touch him, Sesshomaru thrust his glowing hand into the hanyou's face, immediately melting the layer of flesh he touched. Yowling and pulling his head back, Inuyasha slashed Sesshomaru across the chest, cutting through his breastplate and catching skin before leaping away and pressing a hand to his cheek.

Sesshomaru stood up, baring his teeth in turn and using his height to his advantage. This was the language Inuyasha's youkai would understand. If Sesshomaru did not maintain his dominance, he would soon be devoured. While Inuyasha understood this dynamic, it was clear he did not like it and would not readily accept it.

The hanyou darted forward, his rising anger replacing any shreds of sanity, and his jaws snapped shut just shy of Sesshomaru's arm while clawed fingers snared the front of Sesshomaru's robes around his collar bone and above his ruined breastplate. With a bodily shove from Inuyasha, Sesshomaru's back was against the wall and his hands were wrapped around Inuyasha's tensing throat. The muscular flesh in Sesshomaru's hands sizzled beneath the exposure to his potent poison, but Inuyasha pushed Sesshomaru even harder as though he could no longer feel the pain.

Sesshomaru could feel it though. He could feel the damage being done by his own hands while Inuyasha's skin blackened and the side of his own neck burned white and hot where Inuyasha had marked him.

Sesshomaru released his hold on the hanyou's throat. Eyes wide and barely seeing, Inuyasha grinned menacingly, baring far too many teeth. It was impossible to know whether the look on Inuyasha's face was satisfaction, warped amusement, or something entirely different.

The hanyou then dragged his tongue across the peak of Sesshomaru's chest where claws had broken skin, the action piercing Sesshomaru's gut with nausea. Inuyasha growled into his skin, and from that growl emerged a single, unmistakable word, " _Mine_."

_So it can speak_ , Sesshomaru thought venomously as he took Inuyasha's hair into his fist and wrenched the hanyou's head away. His glare met Inuyasha's hungry eyes and held them. "You listen to me," he said, clutching the hanyou's hair so hard he punctured the skin of his own palm with his claws. "I will _never_ belong to something as disgusting as you."

Something, perhaps comprehension, returned to Inuyasha's eyes. They lost a fraction of their malice and darted across Sesshomaru's face, searching for something. Whatever it was, Inuyasha did not find it, for he shoved Sesshomaru into the wall again, the back of the youkai's head breaking through wood, and Inuyasha jerked backwards, causing clumps of snarled hair to tear off into Sesshomaru's clutches.

Breathing hard, Sesshomaru tossed the clumps of hair aside and steadied himself once more, tensed for another assault. Sesshomaru remained stiff and ready while the hanyou returned to pacing the length of the room, growling to himself and either plotting his next move, locked within his own unimaginable world, or too far gone to do more than absorb the sounds and smells around him.

This was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A NOTE FROM YOUR AUTHOR:
> 
> Hey my lovelies, I know it has been a while. Life forces us all to put our passions on hold from time to time. These days, however, I am confined to my home. I am a teacher, but my school has now closed this week, along with many others, due to the Corona outbreak. So here I am, finally rewriting an old and dear fic in order to keep my brain working and retain what is left of my sanity. I look forward to riding out this crazy time with you all while I furiously word vomit about these two beautiful idiots because they are still my goddamn favorite. 
> 
> I am working with an old story, but there will be many differences because I am a different person now and I no longer have a co-author. This will be a slow-burn romance because those are my favorite, and Sesshomaru will be portrayed as demi-sexual. I just can’t not see him as being somewhere on the ace spectrum. 
> 
> Anyway, please drown me in feedback and keep me sane. 
> 
> Lots of love,  
> Icy


	4. Oil and Water

Sunlight stabbed Inuyasha in the eyes like darts when he opened them, groaning into a dirty floor speckled with gritty debris. His tongue was sticky and dry and his body felt like someone had tied his arms to a tree and tied his legs to a horse and set the ground beneath the horse on fire. Holy shit, he hadn’t even _drank_. 

Inuyasha tried to roll himself over onto his back, tangling his feet up in something as he did so and realizing one of his legs actually was tied to something. He lifted his head up to look down the length of his body. Around his ankle was the end of a thick, glowing thread of energy that led directly to Sesshomaru’s hand. The head-splitting light shone through a gaping hole in the wall directly behind Sesshomaru, so Inuyasha could not make out his darkened expression, but the whip of light cut deeper into his leg, which throbbed with a lack of circulation. 

“Goddamn _ow_ ,” Inuyasha rasped, sitting up abruptly to grasp at the sadistic length that snared him. “Let me the _fuck_ go, asshole!” 

“No,” was the frigid response. Sesshomaru stepped forward, but the whip in his hand remained taut, allowing Inuyasha no means to move away. Inuyasha could see him now. Three jagged lines of dried blood contrasted heavily with the pale skin of Sesshomaru’s chest—he could never remember the youkai lord bleeding so much. It was unnatural. And _no_ , he most certainly did not have any regretful feelings about that. No, he did _not_ , even though Inuyasha was the only one who could have drawn the youkai’s blood. Only Inuyasha could have slashed through Sesshomaru’s precious armor and dirtied his normally pristine face and clothes. After the number of times Sesshomaru had done the same—and more—to him, Inuyasha was sorry he couldn’t remember returning the favor. 

Inuyasha barked a laugh before he could stop himself. 

Livid eyes flashed and the heel of a boot came crashing down into Inuyasha’s stomach. The air inside Inuyasha’s lungs shot out of his mouth, and yellow bile spilled over his chin, spattering his chest. He hacked and spit, trying to regain his breath while his abdomen clenched painfully. There was a clear note of metal as Sesshomaru drew his sword and pointed it at Inuyasha’s throat. 

“This is amusing to you, hanyou?”

_Honestly_ , thought Inuyasha as he propped himself up on his forearms and rolled tired eyes back up towards Sesshomaru’s tensed face, it really was a little bit funny. After everything they had been through, Inuyasha knew he was supposed to be the one to let all of the past shit between them go. He was the one with the humanity and blah, blah, _blah_. And Sesshomaru, being the sadistic psychopath that he was, was not capable of doing anything more than curbing his fucked-up tendencies down a little. Sesshomaru was always going to be the same—he might just be a little more civil when he had the mind. Inuyasha knew this, but Sesshomaru had tortured him for _so long_. Right now, Inuyasha might have been miserable, but Sesshomaru was miserable right along with him. And that was most definitely a win. 

He had to relish in this. If he did not, Inuyasha would dwell on the fact that he had completely lost control of himself again, and he had no idea how to make himself stop.

“Did you not hear me?” The cold tip of Sesshomaru’s sword lifted Inuyasha’s chin harshly. “Have you become far too bestial to respond? Perhaps it is time to put you down.” 

Sesshomaru’s sword pressed into his skin uncomfortably, but Inuyasha was beyond being fazed by this display. “Yeah, Sesshomaru, I can hear you just fine. I was just thinking about how pissed you must be that you can’t do _shit_ to me now.” 

“Can’t I? I assure you, Inuyasha,” said Sesshomaru darkly, “there are far worse fates than death.” 

Inuyasha grinned through the foul taste in his mouth. “You just try it, dick bag.” 

“With pleasure.” 

The sliding door beside them opened swiftly, but Inuyasha did not break eye contact with Sesshomaru, who was clearly plotting and filing away every form of torment that would not result in Inuyasha’s death. Sesshomaru would have to get pretty creative to top the things he’d already done. 

There was a gasp as someone stormed inside, bringing a blur of purple and white into Inuyasha’s peripheral vision. Finally, the one hope Inuyasha had of being rid of his brother had arrived. 

“Is this how the two of you repay someone who is sticking their neck out for you?” Isami’s moderately deep voice rose to nearly a screech. “This is my home!”

Inuyasha finally did break eye contact with Sesshomaru to look around at himself and see what exactly they were being yelled at for. He already knew about the hole in the wall, but now he realized he was surrounded by bits of shredded curtains and cushions, and the wreckage of the tea table, along with everything that had been placed on it, was on the floor at Sesshomaru’s feet. 

So, Inuyasha had been the cause of more damage than he’d thought. Actually, screw that, Sesshomaru damn well could have destroyed shit too. Inuyasha shoved Sesshomaru’s sword out of his face and stood to give himself a tiny bit more dignity, despite Sesshomaru’s whip still being curled around his leg. 

“Calm down, you freak, jeez. It’s just stuff. We’ll bring back more than just flowers to make up for the damage.” 

“Well,” huffed Isami, “I cannot simply take _your_ word for it, _hanyou_.” 

No more ‘Inuyasha-san,’ then, Inuyasha realized as his fingers curled into fists and his teeth ground together. This was nothing new. One misstep and he was just a hanyou again. 

The glowing whip around his ankle tightened as though Sesshomaru were expecting Inuyasha to lash out at Isami, which only made him angrier at Sesshomaru who had no qualms with the way Isami had spoken to Inuyasha. 

“Isami,” Sesshomaru interjected, his tone far more even and calm than it had been moments before. The fake bastard was an expert at hiding anything unsightly. “The value of your recommendations and the effectiveness of your means of transport will determine your compensation. Compensation for proficient aid will be significant. Surely, you will trust _my_ word,” he added, a challenge in his assumption. 

Crossing his arms, Isami nodded tightly, and that unauthentic smile even twitched back onto his face. 

Inuyasha rolled his eyes, suddenly grateful he had not been brought up around the bullshit politics of high-bloods. Having to kiss up to Sesshomaru’s white, unblemished ass was a punishment that was not worth the possession of fine furniture and status. 

“Let’s not waste any time then, as I am sure you are eager, Sesshomaru-sama,” Isami said calmly, his eyes darting briefly to Inuyasha and back. “Please, hold out your hand, My Lord.” 

First sheathing Bakusaiga, Sesshomaru did as instructed, his striped wrist slipping from the sleeve of his kimono as he extended his arm. The lizard youkai reached forward and placed a white pearl into the palm of Sesshomaru’s hand. “This is your gateway to the spirit world,” he said. The pearl was such a small, delicate-looking thing. Inuyasha wondered how it possibly had the power to transport them between worlds. Then again, the Shikon no Tama, a small, pink, shiny orb, had been obscenely powerful. Its power had only been surpassed, perhaps, by the swords forged out of his father’s fangs. 

Sesshomaru tucked the pearl away somewhere near the scabbard at his waist. “As you can see from the state of your home,” Sesshomaru gestured to the floor, “Inuyasha is still unable to control himself around me.” 

Shame burned in Inuyasha’s face as he glared at the floor, not even trying to argue the fact. He had no grounds to deny that some horrible part of him that he had no control over _wanted_ Sesshomaru, as horrifying as that was. Maybe the primal _thing_ in his brain was acting on Inuyasha’s resentment of Sesshomaru. That would make at least a little bit of sense. After all, this was Sesshomaru’s worst nightmare too, and wicked, spiteful deeds were destined to make the victim as well as the offender miserable. 

“Yes, that will make the journey very difficult for you,” agreed Isami, scrunching up his face in thought. 

“Give me something that will bind him.”

“Wait, what?” Inuyasha’s ears straightened to attention. “There’s no fucking away anyone is doing anything else to me. I’m already bound to _Sesshomaru_. No one is binding me in any other way, go it?” His hands went up to defend himself. “I’ll figure this out on my own. Give me time to track down Tetsusaiga—”

“There is no telling what has become of the fang if you were unable to locate it after nearly a day of searching. The effects of a mating bond are strong and unpredictable, as it differs for each pair or group of individuals. I do not wish to be bound to you for long enough to know what those effects will be,” said Sesshomaru with a disgusted curl of his lip. 

“Well neither do I! But I’m not going to be your prisoner from now until we fix this either.”

“I am afraid there is no choice in the matter,” said Isami with a sigh. “Whatever I have to give you will likely malfunction in the spirit world. Demonic power and sorcery behave differently there, according to my sources.” 

Inuyasha watched a muscle tick in Sesshomaru’s jaw and smirked triumphantly. Maybe his luck was turning after all. “Fan-fucking-tastic. So since that’s settled, I think it’s about time we go have our family reunion. And, Sesshomaru, if you don’t let go of me right-the-fuck now, I won’t try to stop my youkai when it scratches at its cage.” 

The whip of light tightened once more around Inuyasha’s throbbing ankle, a quick reminder that it could easily be used against him again, and then it slid away, disappearing into Hell-knows-where—probably Sesshomaru’s ass. Inuyasha rolled his ankle, stifling a wince as sharp, invisible splinters stabbed the inside of his reddened foot. 

"Sesshomaru-sama." Isami smiled once more, his large eyes mere slits, and bowed. "I trust you will have a sound journey." 

Inuyasha muttered to himself, “Oh yeah, I’ll have a great time,” as his presence in the room was disregarded once again. 

Sesshomaru did not seem to care that either of them were in the room, since he then walked outside without another word. Inuyasha huffed and trudged after Sesshomaru since Sesshomaru held their only ticket to freedom. Once Sesshomaru reached the edge of their current spit of land, he plucked the white pearl from his side and rolled it between his fingers. The memory of Sesshomaru forcing the black pearl out of his eye all those years ago rushed back to Inuyasha. Thinking about it now, their battle to reach their father’s grave and claim Tetsusaiga had been a stroll through the cherry blossoms. And he’d even gotten to slice off Sesshomaru’s arm. He’d take a vicious, bloody battle that nearly kills him instead of this weird youkai mating shit any day. Those times had been so much simpler. 

Without further delay, the youkai tossed the pearl into the air. At first, it did nothing but fall. Then, it stuck in the air and glowed eerily, expanding before their eyes into a gaping hole, larger than Isami’s hut, swirling with purple energy that seemed electrically charged.

The hanyou stepped up beside Sesshomaru to gaze into the unknown while his hand rested on his hip in an instinctual motion, reminding him of the loss of Tetsusaiga. Normally, he would have no qualms about charging through a portal, but his heart pounded at the thought of going in there without his unfailing sword at his side. Without his sword, he was vulnerable in more ways than one. 

Inuyasha scowled at his own thoughts. Maybe he didn't have the sword, but he was the hanyou who met every soulless monster head-on in battle and sent them all to Hell. Inuyasha was irrecoverably and profoundly stubborn. He’d survived without his sword before, and he could do it again. 

“Here I come.” With a forced sense of bravado, Inuyasha took the first leap into the unknown. 

The portal took hold of Inuyasha’s body, spinning him within the wild energy. He blinked, and then he was somewhere else, standing beside Sesshomaru again with no portal in sight. The world had been lit by daylight moments ago, but here the land was enshadowed by dusk. Only a sliver of lingering daylight illuminated long, thick grasses that engulfed anything below the knee. The expanse of grassland stretched farther than even Inuyasha’s eyes could see. The only visible variations were the occasional dip in the greenery where a gust of wind lazily flattened it before allowing it to bounce back up again as though the grass was never disturbed. 

“This place looks pretty unremarkable. Is this really the spirit world?” Inuyasha wondered aloud. It looked nothing like the resting place of their father, but as he inhaled deeply, he realized it smelled similarly lifeless. How was it that a field full of green grass could smell so dead?

“You realize it, do you not? You cannot sense anything beyond this field.” Sesshomaru plucked one of the blades swallowing up his long legs and rubbed it between his fingers as though it would give him some sort of insight. “The rules here are different than those of our world.” 

Well, something was still the same, thought Inuyasha bitterly. Even just looking at Sesshomaru for a prolonged period of time as he was, the stowaway in Inuyasha’s brain reared its head. It fought for control, narrowing Inuyasha’s focus as his eyes were currently fixated on the curve of Sesshomaru’s jaw and the side of Sesshomaru’s neck that bore his mark—not _his_ mark, the mark of the insane rogue youkai in his head. Inuyasha shook his head to dislodge any thoughts of his brother’s neck, but it only made him dizzier than he already was. Inuyasha groaned loudly, knowing he was going to have to fight his own brain constantly while he was also supposed to be searching for a gods-forsaken grave in the _spirit world_. 

Before Sesshomaru could comment, Inuyasha said, “Okay, big-shot. What the hell do we do now?” 

"We walk," Sesshomaru answered simply, giving none of his thoughts towards their situation away as he began to move forward. Even when facing uncertainty, Sesshomaru still radiated confidence. 

Exhausted and downright unhappy, the hanyou trudged along beside the youkai and tried to ignore the odd, coarse texture under his bare feet making his skin itch and the way the grass tugged at the fabric of his hakama with every step. Sometimes he stubbed his toes on randomly hidden rocks, just to make things interesting. There was no reprieve from his inner youkai as he walked either. If anything, the thing in his head was even more restless during this uneventful, mind-numbing march towards _nothing_. This was the first place that had ever tried to kill him with boredom. 

The place hadn’t felt like this the first time he’d been forced to visit the spirit world; maybe it was because he’d been too focused on fighting his brother and protecting Kagome inside of their father’s treacherous remains to actually absorb the world around him. Now, Inuyasha could spend eternity taking it all in. 

* * *

They had to have been walking in a straight line for hours, though there was nothing around them to indicate any passage of time. Sesshomaru tired of seeing a constant horizon of moon-washed green. He tired of the sound of rustling grass. The agitation wafting off of the hanyou, though satisfactory, was also tiresome. 

As he had been the previous night when Isami had left them, Inuyasha was uncharacteristically quiet while he paved his own path through the tall grass rather than following in Sesshomaru’s. Aside from the occasional noise or curse of complaint from Inuyasha, no words were spoken between them. Sesshomaru wondered what could be causing a creature who chose blind action over everything else to think so thoroughly. Well, he knew what could be causing this, but he had expected irrational rage over quiet contemplation. 

Sesshomaru’s gaze wandered over to Inuyasha, who was now falling behind, his body hunched and his eyes half-lidded and dazed. Inuyasha may as well have just risen from the dead, while normally he had boundless energy. A day of walking was not nearly enough to sap Inuyasha of his energy so thoroughly. This was a problem. 

This was what a lack of proper sleep looked like in a lesser creature. As Inuyasha’s youkai blood had taken control for a full two nights in a row, Inuyasha’s body had not rested and his mind had only partially slumbered. If he remained the way he was now, Inuyasha would be a useless burden in an unfamiliar place where anything could go awry at any possible moment. Although, if Inuyasha were to somehow perish along the way…then there would be no more need for this journey at all. 

The sound of a large mass crunching the grass beneath it gave Sesshomaru pause. He turned to find Inuyasha face-down in the dirt as though he had been bludgeoned in the back of his head. 

In the past, Sesshomaru would have hauled the hanyou back up by a single furry ear, but this time he stepped away from the hanyou, knowing exactly what would come following Inuyasha’s unconsciousness. 

A muffled growl permeated the silence, and the scent of potent youki followed it like the harsh smoke of a lightning fire. He would not be surprised to see that raw power bubbling beneath the hanyou’s skin. This was the kind of power that would devour the creature that contained it from the inside-out. 

Inuyasha jerked and clawed at the dirt, pushing himself to his feet to glare with unhinged ferocity through snarled, dirty hair. 

_Hanyou are abominations for more reasons than one_ , Sesshomaru’s mother had said to him nearly a lifetime ago. 

The history of their prestigious inuyoukai clan had been passed down to Sesshomaru by his mother. It was she who taught him of their family’s influence and triumphs, and it was also she who taught him of the disgraceful stains within their family’s lineage. When Sesshomaru was old enough to know exactly how new creatures were spawned, his mother had told him of her grandfather. Unintentionally, her grandfather had impregnated a human woman, creating a hanyou child. The child was grotesque with a malformed mind, but he was powerful due to the stature of his father. Her grandfather honed his child’s skills in secret, as the child was still his son, and what did her grandfather receive in return? A gruesome death at the hands of his own child. 

A hanyou was imbalanced by nature, bound to be driven insane by warring blood. One may stir oil and water together over and over again, but if the mixture is allowed to settle, it separates. It is still simply oil floating atop water, somehow forced to coexist even though they will always reject the other. 

The life of a hanyou would inevitably end in disaster. The older a hanyou grew, the more likely it was for the creature to come apart at the seams, making it a danger to all who were stupid enough to trust said hanyou. Tetsusaiga, Sesshomaru eventually learned, possessed the ability to balance Inuyasha’s warring natures, so Sesshomaru had foolishly let his guard down. With Tetsusaiga gone, Inuyasha’s sheer will alone was no longer enough to save him from himself. 

The deranged disaster that had chosen Sesshomaru to be his mate circled him now, down on his filthy hands and feet, searching for an opening. This caution contrasted with its demeanor during the previous night. Those crimson eyes with bright blue oval pupils watched Sesshomaru’s every move while Inuyasha prowled around him. Blind rage was absent this time, but Inuyasha’s low, tense body was still threatening. 

In an attempt to once again control the outcome of this battle, Sesshomaru extended the fingers of his right hand, willing his prehensile stream of light to slide out of his fingertips in his defense. 

Inuyasha’s eyes locked onto Sesshomaru’s stream of power, widening in fierce resentment, and Inuyasha roared savagely, returning to that same pit of rage as his lips pulled back over each overgrown fang. Inuyasha continued to bare his teeth as he stalked forward through the grass, abandoning his circling approach. 

So this is how it would be each time Inuyasha failed to contain the beast within him. Sesshomaru would spend each night battling the creature who had claimed him, the creature whom Sesshomaru was currently unable to seriously harm. That was what their existence would be until they found their father’s grave, and Sesshomaru was not even sure how he would lead them out of this _thrice-damned_ field. 

Sesshomaru watched Inuyasha seethe at him—at the weapon in his fingertips. As Inuyasha closed in on him, Sesshomaru knew he was entirely out of options. The threat of the same battle night after night pushed Sesshomaru to do something his instincts screamed at him not to. He lowered his hand and willed the power emanating from it to disintegrate into nothing, leaving him unarmed. 

Inuyasha kept coming, rising off the ground and stopping only when his enraged face was an apple’s width from Sesshomaru’s. Although he was a head shorter, Inuyasha stared Sesshomaru down, growling and salivating. Sesshomaru did not back down, his expression solidifying to hide his uncertainty. A clawed hand moved towards Sesshomaru’s eyes, so he caught it firmly by the wrist, emitting a growl of his own.

The pulse in Inuyasha’s wrist was hard and quick, not unlike Sesshomaru’s in this moment. The adrenaline in the air was thick enough to cut. 

“I will not fight you now,” Sesshomaru announced in as few words as possible. “Do you understand?” Inuyasha narrowed his eyes, saying nothing, but he did not tear his wrist from Sesshomaru’s grasp, choosing instead to remain still. “You desire me.” Inuyasha growled in response to that, but the growl was strange, softer. The hanyou was understanding his words. Good. 

Knowingly, Sesshomaru swept his hair to the side with his other hand, providing Inuyasha with a full view of the teeth marks in his neck. Inuyasha was instantly captivated. “Listen well,” Sesshomaru said evenly, and the hanyou’s tufted ears twitched. “I despise you and everything you are. However, I propose a bargain.” 

Mouth twitching, Inuyasha inhaled the air between them, and Sesshomaru knew he was losing the hanyou’s attention, so his claws cut into the hanyou’s wrist, prompting Inuyasha to snap his teeth just shy of Sesshomaru’s nose. Closer now to Inuyasha’s ear, Sesshomaru said, “I will allow you to act as my mate.” Swallowing the dryness in his throat, Sesshomaru allowed that statement to sink in for a moment, for his own sake as much as Inuyasha’s. “In return, you will only show yourself once your other half has gone to sleep, and you _will_ hide yourself again at my command.” Inuyasha continued to glare as he ran his tongue over the point of a long fang. Sesshomaru was certain he would need to explain his proposal further, but then Inuyasha leaned closer still, his warm breath assaulting Sesshomaru’s chilled ear. 

With a voice repulsive and coarse enough to peel a layer of flesh from a lesser creature’s bones, Inuyasha growled low in his throat, “Un-der- _stand_.” 

Sesshomaru turned his head slowly, and what he saw first was a hideous grin with crowded teeth and inflamed gums. 

The bargain had been struck.


	5. Too Close

Sesshomaru’s mother was emphatically alive, and, for that, Sesshomaru was grateful for the first time since she had deigned to resurrect young Rin. If his mother were dead and wandering the spirit world, she would undoubtedly track him down and bite his head off, quite literally, so the impossibility of that was a small mercy. In the end, his mother’s warnings could have prevented his fate, and she would surely tell him that without sympathy. 

If any benevolent god took part in the machinations of this world, not a soul could see Sesshomaru as he disassociated from his body; for it could not be  _ him  _ standing in a field, allowing such a loathsome creature to touch him. But it  _ was  _ him. He could not ignore this fact for long because Sesshomaru’s mind had never allowed him the gift of complete denial. Reality was cruel, and it never relinquished its hold on him. Reality had tethered him to his hanyou brother despite the countless efforts Sesshomaru had made to disown him. 

A sandstone hand grasped the back of Sesshomaru’s neck while many teeth scraped against the underside of his jaw. Inuyasha’s wet, rough tongue was loud in Sesshomaru’s ears, and the other filthy hand tangled in the length of Sesshomaru’s hair. The inevitable scent of arousal filled Sesshomaru’s nose, the result of that scent pushing itself into Sesshomaru’s leg. 

Sesshomaru choked on the thundering heart pumping ice through his veins as the hanyou panted hard against his skin and began to force Sesshomaru backwards with the urgency of his touch. The creature before him was physically bonded to him by an ancient, mystical ritual, and Sesshomaru’s insides still churned like the storming sea.

The sensation in Sesshomaru’s gut was nothing new to him. A fervid creature of any kind or appearance could suggest sex, and Sesshomaru would still feel nothing aside from apprehension or boredom. A century had passed since Sesshomaru last subjected himself to being courted by other youkai. Sesshomaru was not naive—he could have any creature he so desired. And yet, he wanted none of them. 

Sesshomaru wanted no one, so nature had seen fit to thrust Inuyasha upon him. 

Suddenly, Sesshomaru was pulled firmly to the ground, the motion catching him off guard long enough for Inuyasha to trap Sesshomaru’s legs beneath him and push Sesshomaru onto his back with a wide hand on his chest. Inuyasha’s long hair hung down to gather at one side of Sesshomaru’s face, and hungry eyes seemed to contemplate how Sesshomaru would be devoured. 

Unseen, a hand groped between Sesshomaru’s legs, and his own youki spiked, a furious snarl ripping from his chest. Eyes wild, almost desperate, Sesshomaru grabbed Inuyasha’s shoulder and positioned his claws at the hanyou’s throat. Poison threatened to emerge from his hands, but Sesshomaru had the mind to will it away—the bargain could not be broken so soon. 

Frustration and confusion were plain on the hanyou’s face, but he paused in his actions to sniff Sesshomaru’s chest and growl, “My mate.” His hand shifted slightly to rest on Sesshomaru’s inner thigh. 

“You chose the  _ wrong  _ mate,” Sesshomaru hissed between clenched teeth. 

Inuyasha’s thick, dark brows furrowed, and Sesshomaru briefly wondered if he was finally getting through to the hanyou, but of course the hanyou was far too senseless and single-minded to heed him. “No. Not wrong,” Inuyasha said with an irrational certainty. 

Inuyasha’s hand abandoned the area between Sesshomaru’s legs and slid his hand up Sesshomaru’s body to touch the bite marks in Sesshomaru’s neck instead. Calloused fingers traced the two crescents made by sharp teeth, crimson eyes seeming to admire them. Then, Inuyasha pulled back a little to grasp at his own robes until he was able to tug them over his head with the ties still intact and toss them aside. 

With his torso now bare, Inuyasha grabbed the raised hand threatening his throat and pressed it to his shoulder. He held it there for a moment while he stared down at Sesshomaru, his eyes wild but...considerate, if that were possible. The hanyou was awaiting Sesshomaru’s response. 

Experimentally, Sesshomaru’s fingers brushed the mark on the top of Inuyasha’s shoulder. The hanyou closed his eyes and a shudder ran through his muscular form. Sesshomaru’s lips parted in surprise as tension seeped out of the skin beneath his hand as an infection would seep out of a treated wound. Inuyasha’s tumultuous youkai blood calmed a little, but it was still ravenous. 

Inuyasha’s hand left Sesshomaru’s and reached between them. Tensing, Sesshomaru growled, but the hand did not touch him. Inuyasha rose to his knees, no longer trapping Sesshomaru’s legs, and reached his hand into the front of his hakama to free his erect manhood from its confines. 

Poison readied itself again within the youkai’s crawling skin, preparing for the hanyou’s attempt to violate him. Inuyasha pressed his face into the side of Sesshomaru’s neck, inhaling deeply, and the attempt never came. There was no move to tear off Sesshomaru’s clothes, no attempt to force a reaction from Sesshomaru’s groin, and no search for a place to shove his cock. 

Inuyasha merely nipped Sesshomaru’s skin, licking and sucking fervently at the youkai’s neck while he stroked himself just above Sesshomaru’s body. Never pulling his lips from Sesshomaru’s skin, Inuyasha groaned loudly, emitting for the first time a sound devoid of anguish. 

Sesshomaru’s head was wrenched back by his hair as the hanyou ravaged every exposed bit of flesh beneath his chin. While the hanyou gripped Sesshomaru as though he might somehow slip away, Inuyasha shook their bodies back and forth, thrusting himself into his own hand while he panted erratically. 

The embrace was rough, but far from painful. And it confused the ever-living hell out of Sesshomaru. 

Inuyasha trembled against Sesshomaru, sweat beading on tanned skin. His jaw cracked and his hot breath hitched and he growled his pleasure. He thrust twice more, and then Sesshomaru smelled the hanyou’s seed. When the nipping and trembling ceased, Inuyasha collapsed heavily on top of Sesshomaru. They lay there for a moment while the hanyou caught his breath. Inuyasha then released his grip on Sesshomaru, and Sesshomaru’s hand slid away from his shoulder before the hanyou rolled over to lay beside him. 

Discreetly and uncertain of his next move, Sesshomaru glanced over at Inuyasha’s face. Despite the hanyou’s crimson eyes and jagged markings on his cheeks, there was no more anger in the hanyou’s expression. If anything, there was contentment as Inuyasha’s eyes drifted closed. The markings on Inuyasha’s face faded and disappeared, a final indication that Inuyasha’s youkai self had kept their bargain. 

Sesshomaru’s thoughts raced while he lay there next to the slumbering hanyou. The unnatural beast beside him was powerful, wild, and without sanity, but…

The creature had actually behaved as though Sesshomaru truly  _ was  _ his mate and not simply an object to take and discard, not simply a lord that could provide status or boasting rights. Sesshomaru had agreed to act as the hanyou’s mate, but he had never expected the hanyou to understand and respond to his reservations. Hanyou were mindless beasts when their youkai blood took over—they were not supposed to show restraint. 

Perhaps, Sesshomaru thought numbly, this was the first of the effects he had unwillingly learned. This was the very surface of a youkai mating bond. Even worse, Sesshomaru had failed to completely despise it. 

* * *

_ “Not lost, are you?” Countless soft voices spoke all at once, but there was no one to be seen. “Mortals who do not belong should be far more careful here. It would be such a waste to watch you perish in a field with no end. We will give you a way out.”  _

Inuyasha’s eyes blinked open, the remnants of far-away voices ringing in his ears. Dawn had flooded the sky with a pink-orange glow, and the trees—the  _ trees _ . 

Inuyasha sat up with a start, barely registering the fact that he had shed his haori during the night, and stared at the dense, looming forest before him. There was no longer dew-dropped, itchy grass as far as the eye could see, as though giant trees had magically sprouted or crept up to them during the night. Wherever they were, all bets were off. Before he’d fallen asleep, which he did not remember doing, their efforts had seemed pointless, but somehow the field had ended. 

Things were looking up. Inuyasha actually felt  _ rested  _ and not totally pissed off, despite the lack of a bed and an intruder in his brain. And sleeping near Sesshomaru. 

Inuyasha stood and pulled on his haori, glancing around himself. He spotted Sesshomaru a distance away, staring into the forest while standing just outside of it. Inuyasha allowed himself a smirk, realizing Sesshomaru was probably just as confused as he was about the change of scenery. Since neither of them really knew what they were doing, Inuyasha would have a hell of a great time noticing all of the things in this world that would perplex the youkai, and then Inuyasha would watch the youkai pretend everything was still in his control. These small pleasures would keep Inuyasha sane while he was on a bat-shit quest to become un-mated to Sesshomaru. 

Hands clasped behind his back, Inuyasha sauntered up to Sesshomaru, who was refusing to acknowledge his presence. For some reason, Sesshomaru was no longer wearing his armor, and the poofy length of fur normally gracing his shoulder was sealed away, which left him looking smaller and less intimidating. It was a weird transformation. Inuyasha had never seen his brother without all of his unnecessary trappings. An old piece of armor was a way less effective defense than the youkai’s own skin, and to this day Inuyasha could not hope to understand why Sesshomaru would think it was necessary to keep a part of his youkai form draped over his shoulder like he was some sort of peacock. 

Inuyasha cleared his throat. “So… Did anything interesting happen last night?” 

“No,” Sesshomaru replied, still gazing through the trees. 

A weight lifted from Inuyasha’s chest. If Sesshomaru was not complaining or covered in blood, Inuyasha’s youkai half must have stayed dormant the night before. Maybe his youkai blood was losing its hold on him. 

In response to that thought, something prodded Inuyasha’s mind, pushing his thoughts away from potential success and towards the appearance of Sesshomaru’s figure in just his flowing kimono, hakama, and sash. As quickly as the pressure in his mind had come, it left, but it lingered there long enough for Inuyasha to then need a bath and a priest. 

So if Inuyasha’s youkai wasn’t actively trying to steal his consciousness away, it would be kicking around in the back of his mind shoving lewd thoughts into his head? Well, that was just  _ great _ . At least when his youkai took over, it was almost like it had never happened because he could not remember any of it. Inuyasha did not want to know what his weird, pent-up youkai thought about Sesshomaru. 

Out of desperation to think about  _ anything  _ else, Inuyasha said, “What the hell happened to your armor?” 

“It was destroyed.” 

“You mean the claw marks? Those can be fixed. You should just put it back on. Come on, wasn’t it your grandmother’s or something? Family heirloom or whatever.” 

Sesshomaru’s glare finally turned to Inuyasha. “Why are you speaking of things you know nothing about? My armor was ruined, so I discarded it. There is no need to preserve appearances in this place.”

“Hah!” Inuyasha grinned despite himself. “So you admit you wear all that junk to look pretty for all the other lords. Not that you’re pretty, you just  _ think  _ you’re pretty,” Inuyasha added in case there was any confusion. 

With an odd arch of his brow, Sesshomaru folded his hands within his sleeves. “You mock tradition, Inuyasha, while you wear the same rags you were gifted at birth.” 

“My clothes protect me from  _ fire _ , which, by the way, has been shot, hurled, and waved at me  _ a lot _ . What do your clothes do? Weigh you down and break all the time?” 

Sesshomaru, who, unlike Inuyasha, looked the exact opposite of rested, had the weird barely-smile on his face he always seemed to get when he was about to throw something hard. “Is this truly the conversation you wish to be having with me, hanyou?” 

Inuyasha felt a little heat rise to his cheeks. “Excuse  _ me  _ for having a conversation.”

“If one could call it a conversation.” 

“Okay whatever, asshole, are we going in there or what?” Certainly not waiting for an answer, Inuyasha took the lead into the thick forest, and he would not look back to see if Sesshomaru was following because they both knew Sesshomaru did not have a choice. Making their way into the forest was their only option, even if it could very well be a sick crumb of hope that would end up being just as empty and endless as the field. Inuyasha felt like a fish eager to bite the hook. At least a forest would provide cover. 

As if they had passed into yet another world, the forest buzzed with energy. It reminded Inuyasha of the energy that flowed through Kagome and other miko, except it wasn’t yet dense enough to be used as a weapon. Small forces of life—spirits, most likely—surrounded them from every direction, blinking in and out of view like the flecks of light Inuyasha saw whenever he suffered a solid blow to the head. These things seemed to be the source of the thickening energy, but there was no sense of hostility from them. 

Sunlight bathed the ground through breaks in the leaves, and Inuyasha stood in a patch of light to soak up the warmth, but the moment was short-lived. Suddenly, it was as if the sunlight had been swallowed up by the trees, leaving the sky a solid dark gray. Thunder sounded in the distance. And then came the downpour. 

Despite the thick canopy, Inuyasha’s hair and clothes were soaked through in under twenty strides. Inuyasha refused to look over at Sesshomaru, even to see how much Sesshomaru was hating this, because he  _ knew  _ those stupidly white robes would be see-through and clinging to skin, and Inuyasha was  _ not  _ going to give the insane thing in his head the satisfaction. 

Inuyasha prepared himself for a mental fight even after just thinking about his youkai half, but his consciousness did not so much as flicker. He was still entirely himself. Of all the times to be completely himself again, it had to be a time when he was at risk of being struck by lightning. The sky flashed frequently and thunder boomed in his drenched, abused ears, which were flattened to his head. Regardless of his own misery, the surrounding spirits and woodland creatures did not seem to mind the storm. In fact, they basked in it, up near the tops of the trees. 

A painful growl rumbled inside Inuyasha’s stomach, which he held to suppress the noise. It had been over two days since he had eaten. After a comfortable life of three available meals every day inside the village, Inuyasha was remembering what real hunger felt like. 

“Oi,” Inuyasha shouted over the pouring rain. “You think it’s safe to eat things here?” The last thing Inuyasha wanted was to be poisoned by spiritual energy on top of all of this. 

The silence following Inuyasha’s question spiked his temper. When he turned to glare daggers in Sesshomaru’s direction, the youkai seemed to be scenting the air while he walked. Finally, he replied, “There is plenty of live prey in this forest. Hunt something. If you eat it and die, you will have your answer.” 

Inuyasha rolled his eyes, knowing he should not have bothered to ask. “If I die, I’ll haunt your ass for eternity. I’ll be back, just stay here, where you can be unhelpful away from me.” 

“You do not give me orders—”

Inuyasha was off and running before Sesshomaru had the chance to finish saying what most likely would have been derogatory. 

In an effort to sneak up on something made of meat, Inuyasha leapt from one rain-slicked branch to another, scenting the air for anything apart from the looming storm and his asshole brother. Any scent he caught was unfamiliar and unappetizing, and the things flashing in and out in the trees around him were annoying distractions. 

Something small and white darted into his path and Inuyasha jerked in alarm, aiming to stop himself in his tracks, but his foot slipped clear off of the high, moss-covered branch, and he barreled backwards into the muddy forest floor with a wet  _ slap _ .

“Damn everything,” Inuyasha wheezed as he stuck his hands into the slop beneath him to push himself up. Once he was back on his feet, mud squishing between his toes, Inuyasha froze at the sight of the thing that had caused him to fall. It was floating directly in front of him, but he could not tell what it was. It was no bigger than his head, and its shape was fluid like wisps of smoke. As Inuyasha assessed it, the little wisp moved backward, and a translucent mask materialized at the front of the wisp’s floating smoke. Shaped like a fox, the red and white mask gave Inuyasha’s eyes something to follow while it lurched forward again, a little too close for comfort. 

“Oi!” Inuyasha jumped back and put his hands up to block any surprises. “I don’t know whatcha want, but I am  _ not  _ in a giving mood today. If you want food, I ain’t got any, so scram.” Inuyasha waved his hand around just as the wisp bobbed forward again. “Shit—” With a resounding  _ smack _ , Inuyasha’s hand collided with the wisp, sending it flying into a tree. It fell towards the ground and disappeared before Inuyasha’s eyes. Inuyasha looked down at his offending hand, having expected it to pass right through such a formless spirit. 

Feeling even shittier than before, Inuyasha moved forward on semi-solid ground, rather than risk falling out of another tree. How long would he have to be wet, cold, and hungry? Surviving off of the land by himself was supposed to be an existence of the past. 

“Ow—fuck!” Before Inuyasha could go too far down the path of self-pity, something flew into his forehead and yanked on his ears. Inuyasha clawed at the air, but the thing darted back to a safe distance. It was the masked wisp again, its smoky form fluctuating in the air like it was laughing at him. “Get the hell away from me,” he growled, “before I figure out how to eat you.” 

To that, the wisp disappeared, only to reappear again and smack Inuyasha upside the head. “That’s it!” roared Inuyasha, “you’re dead!” 

The wisp bobbed through the trees and Inuyasha chased after it, spewing any curse that came to mind and throwing reason to the wind. Inuyasha’s threshold for mockery had shriveled and died, so he hunted the wisp with all of his pent-up frustration because he knew the spirit was something he could actually  _ hurt  _ without hurting in return. 

He dodged low-hanging branches as he ran, his breath heaving with his speed and exertion. When the wisp shot upwards, he jumped back into the trees, trying to capture it. Only when movement on the forest floor below caught his eye did Inuyasha stop his pursuit, his hand grasping a branch above his head to prevent a second fall. Not yet taking notice of his presence, a large wild boar trotted through the mud. 

Brows furrowed, Inuyasha realized the masked wisp was still in front of him, bobbing around the branch on which he stood. The black, sunken eyes of the mask blinked and arched upward into crescents. The thing was smiling at him, swirling around in the air and clearly not fearing for its life. 

Inuyasha sighed heavily, the desire to maim flowing out of him. After one last brush against his ear, the wisp faded into the bark of the tree and did not reappear, leaving Inuyasha to inhale the scent of his next meal. 

Not everything in this place, it seemed, was out to get him after all. 

* * *

The storm had finally broken, but copious drops of moisture still fell from the branches overhead. Arms folded, Sesshomaru leaned against the trunk of a tree, staring darkly ahead of him while he tried to ignore his saturated clothes. He had truly considered walking in the direction opposite the path Inuyasha had taken, but the counterproductivity had outweighed the anticipated satisfaction. And so, willing to do whatever it took to be rid of the hanyou, he awaited Inuyasha’s return. 

Without a task at hand, Sesshomaru’s mind wandered to Inuyasha and the events of the previous night. The residual image of Inuyasha’s carnal yet considerate gaze burned into him, inciting a strange tingle up the side of his neck. Growling at himself, Sesshomaru dug into his own arm to banish the reminder. 

Sesshomaru already knew too much, after just a single night of allowing the hanyou to have his way. He knew far too much about their mating bond, about  _ Inuyasha _ —information he was never meant to know, sensations he was never meant to  _ feel _ . 

Never again could Sesshomaru allow Inuyasha to come so close, to embrace him so intimately. An ongoing, bloody battle with Inuyasha’s youkai half was a better alternative to learning too much about a hanyou. 

“Hey asshole, I caught something.” A large animal carcass landed heavily at Sesshomaru’s feet. The dead creature resembled a boar, but it possessed three sets of legs, and curled horns sprouted from the top of its head. “Can’t possibly eat the whole thing. Do you even eat? I have  _ never  _ seen you eat.” 

Realizing Inuyasha had brought the creature back to share with him, Sesshomaru frowned. “I rarely consume food,” he said, eying the boar-like creature with distaste. 

“Of course,” Inuyasha said with a sigh. “You were born with power coming out of your  _ ass  _ and you don’t even need to eat regularly to survive. That’s just typical. So, will you eat any of this?”

“No.” 

“Great.” Slicing the creature down the middle with his claws to begin the process of skinning, Inuyasha grumbled about carrying the boar ‘all this way’ for nothing. “If you’re one of those youkai that eat humans, don’t get any ideas. I would taste delicious, but I bet I’d give you major indigestion.”

“You are not a human, Inuyasha.” Persistent memories of the previous night reminded Sesshomaru of that fact. 

Inuyasha barked a laugh as he tore at the boar’s skin. “That might be the nicest thing you have ever said to me.” 

Silently, Sesshomaru watched warm blood ooze from the corners of Inuyasha’s mouth while he devoured as much of the creature as he could. By the time he finished the rump and a leg, Inuyasha appeared to be choking it down. Perhaps, like Rin, Inuyasha preferred his meat cooked rather than raw, but the ground was far too wet to light a fire. 

When Inuyasha had swallowed at least half of the boar, he slumped back against a tree and  released a jaw-cracking yawn. To make matters worse, the sun was setting. If Inuyasha fell asleep, there was no telling what Sesshomaru would have to endure. 

“Tell me you do not intend to sleep in this filth. You have assured me you are not just a common mongrel,” Sesshomaru goaded, and he received the expected reaction. 

Inuyasha kicked the carcass out of his way and stood, growling, “Can’t a guy let his stomach settle, for fuck’s sake? I don’t need to sleep. Let’s just go already.”

* * *

Together, Inuyasha and Sesshomaru traveled for two nights and three days without rest. Three grueling days spent fighting off the beasts who dwelled in the forest. Three grueling days spent interrogating unhelpful backwater hermits who did not know their own hands from their feet. Three grueling days spent in close proximity with Inuyasha. 

Inuyasha, whose stubbornness and pride kept him on his feet, looked unwell by the end of the third day. The constant irritating remarks about how this was ‘taking way to fucking long’ had stopped. Inuyasha’s complexion was pale and he appeared to be concentrating, though his eyes were unfocused. 

The consumption of the strange spirit world creature could have made Inuyasha ill, but even as Sesshomaru imagined that possibility, he knew it was only wishful thinking. The beast inside Inuyasha was growing restless while Inuyasha was growing weaker. 

In confirmation to Sessomaru’s apprehensive scrutiny, the air thickened with wild, electric youki. Bright scarlet bled into Inuyasha’s eyes before he had the chance to collapse from exhaustion, and the hanyou’s detachment was replaced by blind fury. Many strides away, Sesshomaru faced the hanyou, positioning his back towards the widest opening in the trees. 

“ _ You _ ,” Inuyasha roared as he stalked forward, his stature wide like that of a grizzly bear and his eyes a solid, unseeing red. “You  _ lie _ .”

“No,” countered Sesshomaru with an apathetic tone. “It is you who violated the bargain. Your other half never willingly fell asleep.” 

“Lies!” 

Sesshomaru readied the poison in his fingertips, but Inuyasha disregarded it, choosing to charge towards him, full force. Sesshomaru thrust his hand forward, only grazing Inuyasha’s face. Inuyasha went for his midsection, but Sesshomaru pivoted out of the way, and the power behind Inuyasha’s strike crumbled a boulder, which erupted in a cloud of dust. 

Sediment pierced Sesshomaru’s eyes, leaving him momentarily blind. Sesshomaru swung at a sudden shadow above him and his fist connected with the hanyou’s stomach, but a mouthful of teeth sunk into his bicep until they struck bone. Sesshomaru roared furiously and snapped his own teeth into the back of Inuyasha’s neck. The hanyou yelped and ripped his fangs out of Sesshomaru’s arm, darting backwards. 

Through blurry vision, Sesshomaru watched the hanyou prepare to strike again, and Sesshomaru prepared to unleash Bakusaiga. Mid-step, Inuyasha halted jerkily, eyes wildly searching. Pain flooded into his expression, and he clutched his chest. He began to claw at his own flesh, delving deeply through skin and into muscle as though he had swallowed molten metal. Howling in anguish, Inuyasha dropped to his knees, his blood spilling onto the dry ground in ribbons. Confused, frantic eyes locked with Sesshomaru’s, which widened with unadulterated shock.

“What are you doing?” Sesshomaru asked slowly, dully. “You’ll kill yourself. And I will be rid of you.” Sesshomaru removed his hand from the hilt of Bakusaiga. The burning sensation in the side of his neck flared, overpowering the pain in his arm. 

Gasping for breath, Inuyasha bent forward, bracing himself against the ground with a bloodied hand while his other hand remained lodged in his chest. 

“Stop this. Enough!” Sesshomaru shouted at the crumpled figure his soul was bonded to. 

Tears streamed from the eyes of the beast. 

Savage beasts were nothing more than raw instinct and emotion. As Sesshomaru stared at the wreck of a creature before him, he found himself wondering if that raw emotion did in fact reach beyond rage and lust. Even with all of his power and resilience in this form, Inuyasha looked more helpless than ever before. Sesshomaru should have been satisfied...but he was livid. 

Before he realized his feet had carried him forward, Sesshomaru’s hands were shaking Inuyasha by the shoulders. “I said, that’s  _ enough _ !” 

An escaped growl gave way to a sob. “No more—hurt,” Inuyasha gasped. 

“You are doing this to yourself,” Sesshomaru growled, disturbed by the frantic pounding of his own heart. 

“No more hurt... _ mate _ .” 

Confusion gripped him for a moment. Then, Sesshomaru closed his eyes, clenching his teeth hard enough to crack them. The foolish hanyou was mutilating himself for Sesshomaru’s sake. What sort of creature would do that? Sesshomaru had never  _ asked  _ for such a thing. Of all the idiotic, reckless,  _ deranged _ reactions—Sesshomaru did not want this. 

With a snarl, Sesshomaru seized Inuyasha’s wrist and forced his brother’s bloodied claws away from the shredded wound. Panting, and almost vibrating with adrenaline, he held onto the hanyou’s torso, shielding Inuyasha’s chest from more abuse. Inuyasha fought the hold, still out of his mind with pain. 

“Be still,” Sesshomaru ordered as he slipped his hand into the hanyou’s robes, fingers pressing into the hanyou’s marked shoulder. Inuyasha tensed against him, still intending to escape, but Sesshomaru did not let go. Only Sesshomaru’s fingers moved, caressing the scar atop Inuyasha’s shoulder, allowing the power of the bond to spread calm throughout Inuyasha’s body. Eventually, Inuyasha’s head fell forward to rest against Sesshomaru. 

They sat still on the ground, frozen by mutual uncertainty. Inuyasha’s hunched body trembled a little. A warm tongue lapped at the wound in Sesshomaru’s arm.

“It will heal soon,” Sesshomaru assured the beast in his arms, though he was not sure why he did. Inuyasha did not cease this action, so Sesshomaru grasped the back of the hanyou’s head and forced the hanyou’s chin to rest on his shoulder. “Idiot hanyou.” 

Again, Sesshomaru found himself exactly where he never should have been. His body rested against the body of a hanyou, the body of the one whose existence he had spent so many years rejecting. Inuyasha was supposed to hate him and, therefore, stay far away from him, but the hanyou held onto him. Sesshomaru wondered if the complexities of their relationship were lost on this side of Inuyasha. Regardless, this was not the way a mindless beast was supposed to act. A mindless beast was not supposed to care about those who cared nothing for  _ him _ and longed to orchestrate his death. 

If this was the penalty for fighting the beast, Sesshomaru realized it was no longer worth preserving his own dignity. The beast would never remain dormant again if Sesshomaru refused to allow contact. The more Sesshomaru fought, the longer he would be forced to stay in this world. The cost of prolonged exposure to the spirit world and, in turn, this side of Inuyasha would prove detrimental. 

“You cannot trust me,” Sesshomaru said into the mess of Inuyasha’s hair. “And I cannot trust you.” Even as he spoke, his hand squeezed Inuyasha’s shoulder of its own accord. 

“Mates...can trust,” Inuyasha growled softly in reply. To this side of Inuyasha, there were no gray areas. To him, this was all or nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my dear Inuyasha-loving family! Thank you for your kind, supportive embrace during these stormy times. I appreciate the heck out of all of you and I thank you for your feedback and questions. You are definitely contributing to my lingering sanity. 
> 
> Lots of love,  
> \- Icy


	6. Understanding

Something had taken a giant bite out of Inuyasha’s chest. That was his first thought when he opened his eyes and felt nauseous with pain. Tenderly, his hand crept over the damage, feeling the ragged grooves and coming away with a lot of dried blood. Inuyasha had awoken again covered in blood and with no memory of how he got there. At least the pain told him the blood was his own. 

Was this his life now? Constantly losing time? Never knowing what he might do next to drag his own highly cultivated name through the shitter? 

Inuyasha tried not to imagine what his youkai had done to provoke Sesshomaru to incapacitate him again, as his youkai had made it clear that it wanted to mate with Sesshomaru. This time, at least, Inuyasha’s arms and legs were free. He sat up slowly, his head spinning. The weakness in his body went beyond days without sleep and having his ass handed to him by Sesshomaru again. But he was not  _ weak _ . He had always been in control of his own destiny because he had to be. There was no one else like him who could tell him what he was supposed to do. Now, though… Inuyasha would give anything for someone to tell him what he was supposed to do. 

“I hate you,” Inuyasha said distantly to the part of himself that was out of his reach. “You are ruining my life. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix it.” 

Something stirred in the shadows beside him, something draped in white with silver hair. Sesshomaru was propped up against a tree with one knee pulled up and his arms resting at his sides. Inuyasha braced himself for whatever the youkai would do or say to him next. Whatever he had done in his unconscious state would surely be held against him. 

Sesshomaru remained still, though a short breeze shifted his hair a little. Inuyasha followed the movement of the long strands, noticing Sesshomaru’s eyes were closed. Holding his breath, Inuyasha registered the relaxed muscles of Sesshomaru’s face, the slight part of his normally pursed lips, and the slow rise and fall of his chest. 

Sesshomaru was  _ asleep _ . He was also covered in Inuyasha’s blood, but when was he not? Sesshomaru was  _ sleeping  _ like real, alive things did. Inuyasha found himself breathing as slowly and silently as possible. He was witnessing something forbidden. There was something vulnerable in sleeping around others. And  _ vulnerable  _ was a word that did not describe Sesshomaru. 

If he had the mind, Inuyasha could  _ do  _ something to Sesshomaru. The youkai would mostly likely wake up the moment Inuyasha touched him, but Inuyasha could easily, at the very least, chop off his hair, put a bug in his ear, or blow snot in his face. Inuyasha could slit his throat. 

It was fast and simple to slit a person’s throat. Especially when they never saw it coming. Inuyasha imagined it: He would position his claws over the youkai lord’s major artery, feel the youkai’s throat peel open with one swipe of his hand, and watch the shock in the youkai’s expression while he choked and bled. Even with the bond holding him back, the method might just be quick enough to work. And then, Inuyasha would be rid of this curse. 

Something jabbed him inside of his skull, wiping the image from his mind, and Inuyasha was almost grateful for it. He would not let himself become a murderer. Even in his desperation, Inuyasha knew he did not want Sesshomaru to die. Inuyasha hated the asshole, but that asshole was Inuyasha’s only remaining family. For some reason, that meant something. 

What if, after all of this, they were still unable to break the mating bond? Clearly, Sesshomaru could badly injure Inuyasha. If it were not for the power of their bond, if Sesshomaru could somehow defy the bond, would Sesshomaru decide to end Inuyasha’s life? Would Inuyasha try to stop him?

* * *

“You’re not going to tell me what I did to make you turn my chest into minced meat?” As sleep and a morning of sluggish travel had allowed Inuyasha to recover most of his injuries, Inuyasha had begun running his mouth again. 

Honest discussion of the previous night was out of the question. Even Sesshomaru did not fully understand what had occurred—not Inuyasha’s self-mutilation nor his own reaction to it. Sesshomaru was crossing a serious, invisible line and he could not step backwards. The bond had given him no choice in the matter, but explaining that to Inuyasha was something he could never do. It was better for Inuyasha to remain under the impression that every interaction with his youkai blood ended in violence and bloodshed. 

Inuyasha, the creature who had stolen his freedom, had fallen asleep against Sesshomaru once he had finished trembling. To make matters worse, Sesshomaru had felt...relieved. Being compelled to endure contact with a hanyou when said hanyou was in danger was utterly vexing. Never had any creature been able to manipulate him so thoroughly. 

Sesshomaru would no longer fight the beast within Inuyasha. And Inuyasha could never know. 

“I am under no obligation to report your every move while you are out of control, hanyou.” 

“Well, how do I know you didn’t just do this to me because you’re a sadistic fuck?” 

“Your presence sickens me, and injuring you will keep me further away from the day I never have to hear your voice again.” 

“You got me there,” Inuyasha conceded, biting into a strange green fruit that oozed a deep purple jelly from the inside. “Speaking of that wonderful day, I don’t think we’re any closer to it. We need a plan.” 

Sesshomaru fought the urge to sigh in response to Inuyasha’s infuriatingly obvious statement. Their wandering was aimless. Earlier in the day, the thick forest had begun to thin, allowing a glimmer of hope for a nearby civilization. However, the forest merely morphed into a widespread swamp rife with small beasts and scaled aquatic creatures. Sesshomaru and Inuyasha had both given up their efforts to remain clean and dry. 

“By all means,” Sesshomaru said while each step sucked his boots further into the saturated ground, “enlighten me.”

Inuyasha huffed, walking with his arms spread for balance while he grimaced downward. “I didn’t say I  _ had  _ a plan, I said we  _ need  _ one.” The shallow patches of water were cloudy and tinged with orange, so there was no telling what filth squirmed beneath the surface. 

Until they discovered a creature with knowledge of their desired destination, there could be no plan. Surely, Inuyasha had deduced this, but perhaps the uncertainty was just as maddening to Inuyasha as it was for Sesshomaru. Before this, the challenges Inuyasha faced had been straightforward, consisting of searching for jewel shards while he traveled with a human jewel tracker and battling enemies who were never elusive for long and often came to  _ him _ . Inuyasha could not slice this problem in half with his sword. As obnoxious as that would be, Sesshomaru would gladly allow Inuyasha the chance to do so at this point. 

In the same moment, their footsteps ceased and hackles rose.

“Oi, Sesshomaru…”

“Yes. I can smell them too.” 

The scents of a pack unit had drifted towards them and spread out around them, giving them a wide berth. Sesshomaru could not tell how many of them there were. The scents did not disperse, so it was evident that the pack was not merely passing through. It was slowly closing in. 

“So, when they flank us, I’ll—hey, idiot!” 

Sesshomaru shot forward, the speed of each stride preventing him from sinking into the soft ground. Sure enough, their new pursuers began to move immediately. As he ran, Sesshomaru listened for the encroaching footsteps. Some were remarkably slow and made unnecessary noise. Others were much quicker, but even louder in the way their strides attacked the ground. And then there was one whose steps were fluid, quiet, precise, and swift as a master’s blade. Much like his own. 

To the loudest footsteps struggling to keep pace directly behind him, Sesshomaru shouted, “Do not fall behind!” 

Sesshomaru darted forward, weaving back and forth, lashing behind himself with his whip to sever trees from their roots and send them crashing into the path of their assailants. 

“Watch it with that thing!” Inuyasha yelped, nearly stumbling to the ground. 

On either side of them, two of the swiftest pursuers closed in on Sesshomaru’s peripheral vision. They were still out of his whip’s reach, but their speed had brought them closer to Sesshomaru than they should have been able to get. With narrowed eyes, Sesshomaru easily dodged the knives thrown in their direction. The knives failed to match the speed of the ones who threw them. Were they being played with? No, the knives were a distraction. 

Just ahead, a long blade swooped down horizontally from the trees, aiming to cleave their heads from their shoulders. Sesshomaru bent backwards and slid evenly beneath the blade without losing speed. “Holy fucking—!” Inuyasha cursed, just barely avoiding the blade in a similar fashion. 

As he ran, Sesshomaru’s skin began to tingle and itch. He heard a faint crackle as the glow of spiritual energy charged into the weapons surrounding them. 

_ Damn _ . The assailants readied their bows and released, sending an array of charged arrows whirring from every direction towards Sesshomaru. It would be exceedingly simple to abruptly leap out of the way—and that would leave the hanyou surging into the crossfire. 

Eyes flashing, Sesshomaru spun on his heel, unsheathed Bakusaiga, and simultaneously shoved Inuyasha to the side as everything around him became a blur. With incomprehensible speed, he felled each and every arrow, the pieces dropping at his feet. Another barrage came not a moment after, and he felled each of those as well, pivoting to catch one before it could pierce his side. In that one motion, sight of the ground escaped him, and, with great force behind its execution, something wound tightly around his legs, the solid ends smashing into his shins, and the line ensnaring him. 

With an enormous surge of spiritual energy, Sesshomaru was forced to the ground. Thrashing in shallow swamp water, Sesshomaru hissed raggedly as the energy coiled up his legs like searing electricity, causing his youki to flare and redden his vision. 

Through his pain, Sesshomaru grit his teeth and fought to remain conscious of the figures surrounding him. The durable metal twine about his legs was impossibly tangled, and the malicious instrument scorched his hands with each attempt to remove it. The encroaching figures staggered back a few steps under invisible pressure when unhinged power burst into the open air around them, and Inuyasha expelled a primitive roar that spiked the air with the scent of terror. 

Snarling, Inuyasha crouched between Sesshomaru and the leader of the pack, claws spread and muscles tensed for an undoubted massacre. Manic rage dripped from the hanyou’s trembling form, leaving nothing else to dictate his next move. In this state, Inuyasha would either kill everything in sight, destroying any chance to extract information. Or, Inuyasha’s current lack of fear or sense would be the death of him. 

Able to do nothing more than drag himself forward, Sesshomaru reached for Inuyasha’s arm, but the flight of fabric slipped through his fingers as Inuyasha chose to launch himself in the direction of the creature posing the greatest threat, poised to strike with only his clawed hands. The unknown enemies were far too many, and that understanding brought Sesshomaru’s first reaction straight to his mouth. 

“Hold, Inuyasha!” Sesshomaru growled his command through clenched teeth, and his whip of light shot forward to snatch Inuyasha back by his waist. Inuyasha howled and jerked his body against Sesshomaru’s tether. Spiritual energy rose in the foreign weapons around them, aiming to be unleashed in full upon Inuyasha. 

“Return to me, you thrice-damned hanyou!” With a grunt of exertion, Sesshomaru bodily hauled Inuyasha backwards, setting the hanyou off his balance. The hanyou whirled around in the air and charged in the direction of Sesshomaru, the one who held him back. In his own instinctual move, Sesshomaru jabbed his hand towards Inuyasha’s throat, but the hanyou caught his wrist with enough force to break it and roared directly in his face, his solid crimson eyes nearly bulging out of his skull. Snarling, Sesshomaru struck him in the mouth with the crown of his head and pulled him down into the shallow water, seizing him by both powerful arms. 

With the condition of his legs, Sesshomaru’s grip on the thrashing hanyou was not enough. Why could the hanyou not simply  _ understand  _ him? Inuyasha did not respond to orders or force. He was like a wild animal. Unlike a wild animal, however, Inuyasha could not be broken. Sesshomaru had known that for a long time. 

Bracing himself, Sesshomaru released Inuyasha’s arms, and the hanyou sunk his claws into Sesshomaru’s shoulders. Inuyasha’s open jaws rushed for Sesshomaru’s throat, but the hanyou went rigid before fangs claimed his flesh. Inuyasha scented the blood beginning to seep from Sesshomaru’s shoulders and his ears flattened to his skull. Light and awareness returned to Inuyasha’s demonic eyes. 

“Pain,” Inuyasha growled, his eyes searching Sesshomaru’s body. He plunged his hands into the shallow water, flinching when he found Sesshomaru’s ensnared legs. The lingering spiritual energy would harm Inuyasha as well, even though he was only half youkai. Sesshomaru nearly fell backwards when Inuyasha lifted his legs partly out of the water and began tugging at the wires with his teeth. One by one, the wires snapped between Inuyasha’s teeth until Sesshomaru’s legs were free. Without wasting time, Inuyasha hauled Sesshomaru to his feet and resumed his position between Sesshomaru and the leader of the pack who was nearly upon them. Sesshomaru placed his hand atop Inuyasha’s shoulder, partly to restrain the hanyou and partly to remain standing. The hanyou’s unease was evident beneath his hand, but the hanyou did not lose his control again. Still, Sesshomaru’s grip was vice-like. 

Sesshomaru scanned the surrounding creatures more closely, as Inuyasha’s crazed display had appeared to give them pause. The “pack” was unlike anything Sesshomaru had seen. Each member was extraordinarily different, varying in size, color, and, more than likely, species. Some bore the appearance of youkai. Others appeared human. Some possessed the head of an animal and the body of a man. Strangely enough, no scent of youki wafted from any of them. 

“What are you doing here?” demanded the leader of the pack. This male’s rank was evident in his unaffected expression and in the proud way he walked. He was at least Sesshomaru’s height, though, bare-chested and dressed in black hakama, his build was much more significant. The male’s skin was olive green, contrasting with his wild, atrociously red hair. In his clenched left hand was a curved broadsword that glowed faintly with the same energy that had bound Sesshomaru. “Explain yourselves, quickly. As you can see, you’re greatly outnumbered.” 

Slowly, Sesshomaru shifted his position to stand beside Inuyasha, whose teeth were viciously borne. In the most cordial tone Sesshomaru could muster in his position, he replied, “We are merely passing through.” 

“Oh?” The red-haired male rested his free hand on his hip with a skeptical glare. “Two youkai are just ‘passing through’ Hateshinai? What,” he scoffed at the raise of Sesshomaru’s brow, “you think you’re the first youkai to get caught wandering the place? Come here to see where the makers will chuck your souls when you die?” 

“In a sense.” It was not unlikely the giant bones of Sesshomaru’s unsealed form would end up within this realm as his father’s had. However, if his father’s soul remained, Sesshomaru had no notion. 

“Well then, you’re just another moron who wasted a valuable gateway chasing a non-existent miracle.” 

“Careful,” said Sesshomaru darkly. “You are speaking to a youkai  _ lord _ .”

“Oh, a  _ lord _ ,” the pack leader chortled. “Forgive me if I don’t kiss your scum-covered hand. And get a better servant. What’s wrong with him, anyway? That one seems to be a few seeds short of a pinecone.” 

Inuyasha growled, straining against Sesshomaru’s grip on his shoulder. Whether the hanyou was reacting to their assailant’s tone or the implications of his words, Sesshomaru did not know. Fury boiled inside of Sesshomaru as well, tempting him to let Inuyasha have his way. Inuyasha could butcher this arrogant wretch. 

The olive-skinned assailant tapped his fingers on the hilt of his sword and smiled. “You’re weak in this world.” The sword in his hand glowed even brighter with spiritual energy to emphasize that statement. “You’ll never survive.” 

“Kurama…” 

A plain young male with calm green eyes—human in appearance—stepped into view beside the leader he called Kurama. With shy determination, the young male placed a hand on Kurama’s sword arm. “You don’t have to treat every stranger as your enemy.” 

Kurama shrugged away from his hand. “Go back to your place, Akira,” he said gruffly. 

“I know we’re scouting for enemy activity, but these two don’t appear to be under any thrall.” 

“They could be in  _ league  _ with the Blue Spirits, Akira! Look at them.” Kurama thrust his arm in Sesshomaru’s direction. “You can’t get more suspicious than this! Somehow, they’ve been allowed to continue this far. No portal was seen here. They traveled between Hateshinai plains. I would be a fool to treat this as though it were nothing!” 

The young human, Akira, crossed his arms with a sigh. “I  _ am  _ looking at them. Onii-san… I see two youkai keeping each other alive.” Akira glanced between Inuyasha and Sesshomaru with compassion in his green eyes. “When the odds were against you, you have protected  _ me  _ that way before, remember?” 

Disturbed by Akira’s interpretation, Sesshomaru eyed the positioning of Inuyasha and himself and begrudgingly understood. With the possibility of gaining some kind of favor, Sesshomaru would not correct him.

Something faltered in Kurama’s determined gaze, and he shot the pair another short glance of his own. “Akira—”

“Please, Kurama. Let me handle this.” Akira moved a few steps closer to where Sesshomaru still struggled to keep Inuyasha in his grasp. Inuyasha snapped his teeth, and Kurama lunged forward, but Akira put up his hand to halt any interference, unperturbed. “I apologize for attacking you without good cause.” Akira gave a short bow. “Go home, if you can. No one knows where a soul will go when it dies. The space and distance in this world are relative and unpredictable. Either your soul is tethered to a specific part of this world, or, if you wander too far from your home, it might not be where you left it when you try to return. Does that satisfy your curiosity?” 

Twitching with agitation, Inuyasha sniffed in Akira’s direction. He no longer growled, but he did thrust his arm out to wrap around the front of Sesshomaru’s torso in an infuriatingly territorial way. For the sake of diplomacy, Sesshomaru let it pass without reaction. 

Sesshomaru regarded the human who fearlessly stood before him, deciding to embrace the chance to gain an edge in this world. “We do not journey for the sake of our souls. We only seek the resting place of our father.” 

“Oh. You’re  _ brothers _ ,” Akira said with a pointed glance behind him. Kurama scowled in response. “If that’s really your goal, you’ll have to stay and talk to someone who can help you get there.” 

“Akira! You are out of line!” 

“Onii-san,” Akira said exasperatedly, clearly using the term of endearment as a form of manipulation. “I’ll take responsibility. If they cause trouble, you can blame me. And it’ll just be until they can be pointed in the right direction…” 

Surprise briefly widened Sesshomaru’s eyes. This was an unexpected turn of events...

“I— _ you _ .” Kurama flexed his fingers in the air as he glared down at Akira. “You damn little—gah!” With a groan, he scrubbed his hand over his face. “Fine.” 

“Great.” Akira flashed an accomplished smile. 

Tension within the odd pack spiked again when Inuyasha collapsed to his knees, nearly taking Sesshomaru down with him. Rubbing his head, Inuyasha blinked repeatedly, squinting as though he were looking into a bright light. The mauve marks lining each cheekbone faded, and his eyes returned to their normal golden hue without a trace of red in the whites of his eyes. 

“Shit…” Inuyasha groaned, disoriented. 

“You’d better watch yourself,” Kurama growled. “Both of you.” With one last threatening jab of his sword towards Inuyasha, Kurama sheathed his blade. He administered a half-hearted smack to Akira’s head before turning on his heel and earning an annoyed yet playful punch on the arm from Akira. “Oi,” called the pack leader with impatient sharpness. “Hurry the hell up before I decide to keep you both with the prisoners.” Unwilling to provide any more of a formal invitation, Kurama continued in the direction from which he and the others had come, his unlikely pack falling in behind him. 

“What…” Inuyasha glanced around himself helplessly. “What the fuck is going on?”

* * *

The weird spirit-worlders who had attacked them earlier, and made his stupid  _ youkai  _ come out, were walking like Inuyasha had an invisible forcefield around him. A man with the head of a stag inched away with judgmental sideways glances when Inuyasha experimentally wandered towards the edge of his spacial bubble. He sighed loudly. Usually he was conscious when people first started to hate him. He no longer had only his hanyou existence to blame—his erratic, vicious personality drove people away just fine on its own now. 

Inuyasha still had no idea why they were being allowed to walk right up to the misfit group’s village. If they were this wary of him, maybe this was a trap. The group hadn’t offed them while Inuyasha and Sesshomaru were surrounded, but what if they were being lured into something worse than a swift beheading by a blade that swung down from the trees? Inuyasha had to be prepared for anything at this point. 

Unsurprisingly, Sesshomaru was no help in this situation. Too far behind to question inconspicuously about their next move, Sesshomaru walked with a slow stiffness as though someone had figured out how to jam something  _ more  _ up his ass. Needing Sesshomaru’s help was almost just as loathsome as their curse. They were supposed to be in this  _ together _ . If they did not do this together, according to Isami, they would not be able to get rid of the bond. But so far, Sesshomaru was screwing that up. When this bunch of assholes ambushed them, Sesshomaru had acted on his own without even  _ listening  _ to what Inuyasha thought they should do. Inuyasha could not have guaranteed success, but at least they would have been on the same page. Maybe Inuyasha’s youkai would not have come out to wreak havoc. His life had not even been in danger yet, but his youkai had still taken over. 

A rock sunk into Inuyasha’s gut. What if he was losing himself to his own youkai blood? The longer he went like this—with no Tetsusaiga and no notion of what the next day would bring—would his youkai continue to chip away at him until there was nothing left? 

“Are you going to vomit?”

Inuyasha started, lifting his head to find a slight-figured human walking beside him within arm’s reach. Nothing made sense anymore. 

“Are you pretending to care so I’ll lower my guard? Won’t work.” 

“Oh-ho, just as suspicious as Onii-san. You two might have gotten along if you hadn’t bitten through his meteor hammer.”

“Look,” Inuyasha growled. “I don’t know anything about what happened with you and your brother. When I get like that, I don’t remember shit afterwards,” he admitted begrudgingly. 

“Weird,” said the human with wonder in his eyes, looking Inuyasha up and down and making him feel as if he had suddenly exposed himself. “Well since you can’t remember, my name’s Akira. The big guy giving all the orders is Kurama, my brother.” 

Inuyasha raised a skeptical brow. “Aren’t you supposed to be treating me like I have the plague? Also,  _ that’s _ your brother? You aren’t even the same kind of...thing.”

“Hey. Family doesn’t have to be blood-related, you know. But you’re right.” The Akira kid smiled a little to himself. “I was a human from your world before I died, and my soul came here. Kurama was born here. But he risked his own life to save my insignificant one. We were strangers, but that didn’t matter. Before I knew it, we were family.” 

“Must be nice,” Inuyasha grumbled with a prominent scowl. “Me and Sesshomaru  _ are  _ related, but I was dead to him the second I was born. Always been that way, always will be.” Inuyasha had no idea why he was spilling his personal life to a complete stranger. Maybe having only Sesshomaru for company for nearly a week was getting to him. Actually  _ talking  _ with Sesshomaru was out of the question. Talking to Sesshomaru ensured Inuyasha was either ignored, insulted, or injured. There was nothing to be gained. 

Akira frowned. “It’s a shame you feel that way. Your brother seems to care about you. And you about him.”

For a moment, Inuyasha just stared at the naive little human, dumbfounded. Then, he burst into loud, uncontrollable laughter that startled birds into flight and had him wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. After various uneasy glances from Akira’s pack and a few deep breaths, Inuyasha finally brought his laughter under control. “Holy shit, if you  _ knew  _ him, you would understand why this is so funny.”

Akira crossed his arms, seeming personally offended. “I know it’s none of my business—what is your name? I have told you mine  _ twice _ , by the way.” Damn, this kid was persistent.

“It’s Inuyasha.”

“Okay, Inuyasha. I know it’s none of my business, but I’m going to do you a favor and tell you what I saw today. The reason I am sticking my neck out to  _ vouch  _ for you,” Akira added pointedly. “Whatever was going on with you back there, with the growling and scary eyes, you were going to gut the next person who came near your brother. And your brother protected you from our arrows. You were too slow; you would have taken ten arrows in the back. He took a direct hit from Kurama’s meteor hammer. Can’t believe he’s still walking actually.” 

Inuyasha’s head hurt. Akira had to be mistaken, right? Everything had happened so quickly, how could Akira have possibly interpreted the situation correctly? Inuyasha remembered being shoved. But he’d only been shoved because he was in Sesshomaru’s way...right? 

If Akira was right and Sesshomaru had protected him before, it would be senseless to read into it. Sesshomaru had warned him that the effects of a mating bond were strong. At the very least, the bond would make sure neither one of them allowed the other to die. 

Inuyasha chanced a discreet glance behind himself. Sesshomaru was walking more slowly than ever at the very back of the group. Then again, Sesshomaru hated just about everyone. Inuyasha should be more surprised that Sesshomaru had been traveling close enough to him that, with a solid leap, Inuyasha could have touched Sesshomaru with his  _ filthy  _ hands if he wanted to for some reason because he was a  _ wretched hanyou _ . 

“You’re right,” Inuyasha said, “it isn’t any of your business. Your own good relationship has warped your point of view. Usually, it’s pretty hard to find a rose in a giant pile of shit. And if you do find it, you don’t want it anyway because it’s still covered in shit.” 

Akira nodded with a slight chuckle, even though Inuyasha was pretty sure he hadn’t said anything funny. “You sure are cynical. Or maybe I  _ have  _ been around this crew for too long.” He scratched the back of his head with a sigh. “Not every soul from the mortal world comes here, you know. Hateshinai serves as an intermediary between worlds. If mortal souls do not go directly to their final resting places, or are reborn, they come here to coexist with one another, peacefully or not. Sometimes,” Akira smiled fondly, “we coexist with the ones who were born in this world. But normally the ones who were born here, the  _ Dochaku _ , want nothing to do with mortal spirits. This,” Akira waved his arm to indicate the group around them, “doesn’t usually happen. Many Dochaku devour mortal spirits before they have the chance to move on. Even with that danger, we are stuck here until we are allowed to move on.” 

If Inuyasha had any understanding of this place before he got there, it was officially gone. Damn it, he would have been happier knowing none of this! There were different rules and different sources of power, but generally this dimension was the same kind of fucked up as his own world. The last thing Inuyasha needed was more complex societal shit to screw up his chances of finding some kind of normalcy in his life. To make matters even better, Inuyasha probably had this place to look forward to in the future. Even in sweet death, the gods would never be finished with  _ his _ soul. 

“So, some of you are souls from the mortal realm and some of you are...Dochaku. And what is ‘this’ exactly?” Inuyasha mirrored Akira’s gesture to the group. 

Akira glanced around with a proud grin. “Beings of all different kinds and backgrounds gathered together. United by a common enemy.”

Inuyasha nodded in understanding. The only reason his own group back home had assembled was because they needed each other in the fight against Naraku. Then he shuddered at the thought of this realm having something like Naraku. Or something worse.

He groaned internally. Now Inuyasha knew too much about this band of misfits to beat useful information out of them if they were reluctant to cough it up. Finding out a bunch of assholes were also  _ people  _ was the worst. 

After walking for what most certainly felt longer than it actually had been, they came upon a bridge stretching between monstrous trees, which was wide enough for eight fully grown men to walk comfortably side-by-side. The village connected to the bridge was like something Inuyasha had never seen. Up and down many surrounding trees were various huts built into the sides and connecting to circular boarded walkways that wrapped around each enormous trunk. The interconnected expanse was huge, larger than any human village Inuyasha had been to.

The bridges and boarded walks allowed village residents to exist above the muck below them. This set-up also had to make it very difficult for any enemies to sneak up on them. If this was where he and Sesshomaru had to hide out while they figured out their next move, Inuyasha was not upset about it.

Once over the first bridge, the group dispersed with nothing more than mistrustful glances Inuyasha’s way. Up ahead, without seeming to care one way or another if Inuyasha and Sesshomaru were out of earshot, Kurama said gruffly to Akira, “Make sure they stay out of my way. They’ll remain here only until we know if they can be helped. I need to go make my report.”

“Yes, Onii-san, sir!” Akira saluted mockingly and something softened in the olive-skinned leader. Kurama cracked a smile, slung his arm around Akira’s much smaller frame, and ruffled his short brown hair.

“You’d better not miss curfew, either. I’ll have the whole crew out looking for you and then I’ll turn a blind eye when they finally get their hands on you.”

Akira shoved at Kurama, though there was no anger in the motion, only playfulness. The affection between the two was clear even to a stranger, but it vanished from Kurama’s face when he shot one more annoyed look towards Inuyasha before he released Akira and trudged off.

Akira flattened his hair with his fingers and gestured for Inuyasha to follow him. Sesshomaru, who had soundlessly materialized beside Inuyasha, followed as well. The bustle of the village was a welcome change to days without civilization. In the past, he thought it impossible; but Inuyasha had actually gotten used to living around other people. The sounds and smells of living and prospering were a comfort to him now.

Akira led them through the entirety of the elevated village, stopping on the outskirts before a plank leading to a hut that barely sat above the swamp water. “You can rest here. It’s a good one,” Akira assured them cheerfully, “it doesn’t even leak.”

“Thanks, Kid,” Inuyasha said, genuinely grateful for a dry place to sleep.

“I died when I was nineteen, so I am hardly a kid,” Akira grumbled as he slid open the door to their temporary housing. They all filed in, though the single room felt cramped with three people inside. If Sesshomaru were a head taller, he would be hitting the ceiling. Opposite the door was the rough, rounded side of the tree to which the entirety of the hut was attached. Sap oozed out of the corners where the wall met the tree, but the structure, at least, appeared sturdy. Against one wall was a large pile of straw and a barrel of water that smelled fairly clean. Against the other was a small table with a single chair. Sesshomaru wrinkled his nose as his narrowed eyes skirted the place.

“It’s great,” Inuyasha blurted, tossing the ungrateful bastard a look of contempt.

Sesshomaru ignored him, asking, “Why is this hovel vacant?”

Akira’s expression fell. “Folks disappear sometimes. That’s the nature of this place. Anyway,” Akira clasped his hands, and his expression became carefree once more, “Kurama will alert everyone to your presence, so you should be able to roam around without an escort.”

Great, they’d be sleeping in a dead guy’s house. The sun had not yet set, but Inuyasha eyed the pile of straw, wanting nothing more than to pass out and forget about everything he hadn’t wanted to know. “Okay, so—"

“And I know you must be hungry. I’ll scrounge something up and have it brought to you.”

“That’s not necessary—”

“We did try to kill you after all. After that, you’ll have to find your own food. You’ll have to watch your back if folks start to think you’re getting special treatment.”

“You really don’t need to—oi, what the hell is that thing?” Inuyasha pointed to the floating white spirit drifting just behind Akira’s head. It looked just like the thing he’d seen in the forest while hunting. It even possessed the same white and red fox mask.

“Huh?” Akira glanced around himself. “Oh, this little guy?” He held his hand out to the masked spirit and it disappeared, reappearing in his palm. “This is a kage. Kage are very discrete, so they can be used to keep an eye on suspicious activity. It absorbs what it sees. Then, it goes into your ear and shows you exactly what it saw.” Inuyasha fought the urge to cover his overly sensitive ears. “You were getting too close to the place, so we used it to spy on you.”

Inuyasha scoffed, trying not to think about what the kage could have seen when he hadn’t realized its presence. “Well it can’t be that great of a spy. It showed itself to me in the forest.”

“Taiki!” Akira scolded, and the kage poofed away before darting around the room near the ceiling. “You silly creature, you know better than that!” The kage made a strange, high-pitched squeak in response before it began to orbit Inuyasha’s head, and Inuyasha clamped down on both of his ears in response. The aura around Sesshomaru simply  _ dared  _ anything to come near his ears. “Oh.” Akira scratched his chin. “It has taken a liking to you.” After a moment, he smiled. “Kage are good judges of character.”

“Awesome,” Inuyasha said tightly, trying to keep the floating snitch in his sights. “Always wanted to be friends with a creepy little ear pervert.”

“That’s the spirit! Welcome to Hanran!” Without bothering to call off the kage, Akira vanished through the door to the small hut, leaving Inuyasha in the same confined space as a spy and, even worse, Sesshomaru.

Inuyasha removed his hands from his ears with a growl and snatched the kage right out of the air. “Gotcha! Oww—how are you scratching me, your body is made of smoke!” Inuyasha made a dash for the door to toss it out, but it vanished in his hand. When Inuyasha whirled back around, the thing yanked on one of his ears and zoomed into the tree supporting the shabby hut. Inuyasha stomped over to the tree, pawing its rough surface. When the kage did not reemerge, he punched a chunk out of its bark, scraping his hand. “Yeah, I  _ better  _ not catch you spying on me again! Goddamn freak!” Breathing hard, he rested his forehead against the tree.

“Do not squander your energy battling a tree,” Sesshomaru said coolly, having already seated himself in the lone chair.

Wishing it had been within his rights to ask for a place to sleep that was far, far away from Sesshomaru, Inuyasha flopped himself down onto the pile of dry hay, burying his face in it.

“I don’t care what you do,” Inuyasha ground out, his voice muffled.

“If I desired that haven for insects, I would already have it.”

Inuyasha closed his eyes, unable to care less about the bugs when he was warm and dry. His mind drifted, the presence of unfamiliar sounds keeping him just on the brink of sleep. Akira’s earlier words needled his brain, even though Inuyasha had rightfully dismissed them.

“Would you care at all if I died?” Inuyasha asked softly, hoping Sesshomaru would refuse to answer just as the words left his mouth. Long moments passed, allowing Inuyasha to drift off with the oddly comforting impression that nothing whatsoever had changed.

Inuyasha jolted awake as though he had just been free falling, but it was a sudden frosty baritone that pulled him from the embrace of sleep: “That is a pointless question. Your stubbornness prevents your death, so there is no need to have an opinion of it.”

With heavy eyelids, Inuyasha tried to make sense of Sesshomaru’s vague response. Unsurprisingly, it dismissed Inuyasha’s question altogether.

And yet…

Sesshomaru had not explicitly denied the idea.

To Inuyasha’s possibly dreaming mind, that meant something.

* * *

“You showed yourself today without cause. You violated our bargain. Again.”

Ears pulled back in distress, Inuyasha crouched before the poorly crafted chair on which Sesshomaru sat. Bright blue irises within pools of solid red avoided eye-contact. Claws of one hand picked at the opposite wrist, leaving irritated welts in tanned skin.

The hanyou had known he was doing something wrong, and yet he had done it anyway.

“I have no need of your protection. Your presence only worsened the situation.”

Teeth bared with ferocity towards an unknown target, Inuyasha broke the skin of his wrist, drawing blood.

Sesshomaru grabbed the cut wrist and drew Inuyasha towards him, forcing eye contact, to Inuyasha’s growling dismay.

“If you harm yourself again, I will bind your hands and feet and suspend you from this tree.”

Inuyasha tilted his head, giving no indication of his thoughts on Sesshomaru’s threat. With his wrist captured, Inuyasha switched to sniffing any immediate part of Sesshomaru. His free hand wrapped around Sesshomaru’s boot and pulled until the boot came free, exposing Sesshomaru’s striped foot.

“What do you think you are doing?”

Inuyasha ignored him in favor of pulling off his other boot and balling his hand in the fabric of Sesshomaru’s hakama.

“Off,” Inuyasha said. No, Inuyasha  _ commanded _ .

Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to make no sudden movements. “Why?”

“To see.”

Inuyasha wished to view his body? If that was all the hanyou wanted, Sesshomaru would consider it. However, the hanyou could not be trusted to merely gaze upon him.

“If you must touch me, my clothes will remain,” Sesshomaru asserted.

With a growl, Inuyasha wrenched his wrist away and used both hands to raise one leg of Sesshomaru’s hakama, exposing the entirety of his skin below the knee. Sesshomaru hissed at the sensation, and they both stared at the cause of the relentless burning in his legs.

Where the snare infused with spiritual energy had wound itself around his legs were black crisscrossing lines, fringed by deep purple. A whine escaped Inuyasha’s throat, and his scent ran with misery.

Sesshomaru understood then, that in this moment, Inuyasha had no perverse desire. Inuyasha could sense the damage done to Sesshomaru’s body. And Inuyasha was distressed by it.

Inuyasha tugged at his hakama again, and this time Sesshomaru wordlessly complied, carefully slipping the fabric down his legs and dropping it to the floor, leaving himself wearing only his kimono and loincloth. Kneeling before him, Inuyasha touched the pads of his fingers to an inflamed black line on the inside of his calf. The touch was gentler than Sesshomaru had known Inuyasha was capable of in this state. Partly due to the singed nerves at the center of each angry line, there was no further pain.

A palm rested on Sesshomaru’s thigh, drawing nearly all of his attention with its incredible heat. Sesshomaru’s stomach churned at the presence of that hand, but it did not shift from its firm placement. Inuyasha’s hand grounded him, forcing him to become aware of the absent caress of the thumb, of the old and new scar tissue that marred the back of the hanyou’s rough hand.

A tongue glided up the side of Sesshomaru’s leg, and he nearly leapt out of his own skin. Heart racing, Sesshomaru curbed the instinct to strike Inuyasha in the head. Inuyasha’s eyes slid closed as his tongue and lips moved over the worst of the damage. Fascination soon overpowered the desire to end Inuyasha’s overly intimate ministrations.

Countless youkai possessed the ability to hasten the healing of another’s wounds. The use of saliva for such a purpose had never appealed to Sesshomaru, so he had never administered such a gesture. And in turn, he had never been on the receiving end.

Almost immediately, the burning in Sesshomaru’s flesh began to dull, and the intensity of the discoloration began to fade. While Inuyasha licked him, the hanyou’s hands moved to cradle the undersides of Sesshomaru’s legs. Any feelings of repulsion slipped farther and farther away while Sesshomaru found himself relaxing into the hanyou’s alleviation.

When Inuyasha’s tongue found Sesshomaru’s inner thigh, the youkai’s body tensed. Inuyasha stilled, his eyes blinking open. The hanyou squeezed him lightly, appearing just as calm as Sesshomaru realized he felt in this moment.

“Come,” Inuyasha said in a far softer tone than he usually exhibited while brimming with so much youki. He moved away, kneeling in the center of the bed of hay.

Reality struck Sesshomaru once more as he remembered that Inuyasha would desire something in return. Sesshomaru had agreed to act as his mate, so that was what Inuyasha was expecting.

Defenses rising, Sesshomaru said more harshly than intended, “I have done what you asked of me.”

Something broke again in Inuyasha’s expression, and the tingling warmth from Inuyasha’s ministrations vanished. A moment ago, Inuyasha had seemed to have a clear agenda and understanding of what he was doing, but that awareness had fled him in an instant. Inuyasha retreated, becoming lost in his own tumultuous mind again, but this time it was without anger.

Inuyasha curled up on his side in the hay, wrapping his arms around his own body.

With every bit of his strength, Sesshomaru tried to block out the energy given off by Inuyasha, but his efforts were useless.

He could deny it no longer. Due to their bond, Inuyasha could force Sesshomaru to feel what he was feeling. In this moment, Sesshomaru was plagued with it. Inuyasha’s dismal uncertainty was seeping into Sesshomaru like a miasma, poisoning him against his own reservations and better judgement.

The youkai lord rose to his feet with far more ease than before. With the soft  _ crunch  _ of hay, he lowered himself to lie on his back behind Inuyasha. He could smell the salt of tears. The fragility of one with so much power was astounding. To feel so deeply was an incredible weakness. Normally, Sesshomaru would want nothing more than to crush such weakness. This exact moment could be added to the list of reasons why no one should accept the unstable disaster that was a hanyou.

“With your limited speech, I will not always understand you,” Sesshomaru admitted to Inuyasha’s back. “Much of the time, I have no way of knowing how thoroughly you understand  _ me _ . A mating bond will only ever be painful for you.”

Silent tears continued to flow as Inuyasha squeezed himself as though he feared what he might do. Sesshomaru wondered at the thoughts filling Inuyasha’s head that he would never know or comprehend.

“Words…lost. With—out hu—man. Forget.”

A sense of sympathy crept into Sesshomaru’s gut. In this state, Inuyasha was more self-aware than Sesshomaru had realized. Sesshomaru wondered what it must be like to know he was once capable of more while being unable to access that ability. Such knowledge would be enough to drive any creature to succumb to emotion.

This side of Inuyasha had always been locked away for Inuyasha’s own good. Without his human half, he was wild and unpredictable. Humans were oceans apart from the purest of youkai, making Inuyasha the most unstable of hanyou. Inuyasha’s existence was destined to bring misfortune to himself and to all who crossed his path. How had their father failed to see this? Their father’s lust for a human had been his greatest shortcoming. Knowing the risks, their father had refused to put Inuyasha to death and instead left Inuyasha his most powerful possession infused with the ability to protect Inuyasha from himself.

Watching Inuyasha struggle just as much internally as externally, Sesshomaru’s conviction waned. Mercy, to Sesshomaru, was once the equivalent of a swift death. His father’s idea of mercy had been the sacrifice of himself so that others may live and prosper. But the protection of others was not a mercy if they never learned to fend for themselves.

During his youth, Sesshomaru had learned about the life of a single traitorous hanyou. Only now did Sesshomaru find himself wondering why he never questioned the validity of his clan’s claims against all hanyou. It was easier, he supposed, as humans inevitably tainted the world with weakness. Justification for their disdain was welcome.

After traveling with Rin for years, Sesshomaru no longer found himself viewing all humans as the same. As not every human feared and despised youkai…perhaps not every hanyou would bring only disaster.

If Inuyasha’s youkai had been allowed to shape its own existence, would it still be such a hopeless menace? Might it have learned to function in this world?

Sesshomaru would gain nothing from such foolish pondering. And yet, he found himself truly wishing for the answer.

“You have broken free of your human’s control. Now, you can find your own words.”

Inuyasha’s arms slid away from his body before he rolled over to look at Sesshomaru with moist, puffy eyes. Somehow, those eyes were not nearly as menacing as they had been before Sesshomaru was forced to venture into this world.

“Mate,” Inuyasha announced with perfect clarity, confirming a word he had claimed as his own. It should have been insulting to be constantly referred to as merely Inuyasha’s mate. However, even Sesshomaru recognized the word to be meant as the highest compliment coming from this side of the hanyou.

While he watched Sesshomaru’s face, Inuyasha’s hand slowly reached over to hold the back of Sesshomaru’s head. Inuyasha kept his hand in place and pressed his forehead to Sesshomaru’s, eyes closed, breathing the air between them.

Sesshomaru’s breath hitched with near panic, his eyes darting across the first face he had ever allowed to linger so close for so long. Inuyasha’s calloused hand slid down to Sesshomaru’s neck, resting where Inuyasha knew he had left his mark. With the warmth flooding his body due to the hanyou’s touch, Sesshomaru almost did not realize it when the expected sickness in his gut failed to plague him.

Inuyasha smelled of blood, sweat, dirt, and—relief.

The hanyou broke contact between their foreheads and licked Sesshomaru across his throat. Sesshomaru swallowed against the hanyou’s tongue, forgetting to prepare himself for a potential bite that would crush his windpipe.

Then, Inuyasha withdrew, turning over in the mound of hay once more. His back curled against Sesshomaru’s front; and Sesshomaru lay there still, pressed against him until the hanyou fell deeply asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!!
> 
> My power and Internet have returned, so I am able to post this long, juicy chapter. I hope all of you are well and staying safe. Please hang in there and trust that I will be writing whenever I have time. Remote teaching is a learning curve requiring me to spend a looooot of time on my computer, but I am glad to be connected with my students in whatever way I can be.
> 
> I just threw a lot of information at you guys in this chapter, so please let me know what you think and let me know if you have any questions! <3
> 
> \- Icy


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